The Last
by rosie4299
Summary: So, by now you have read a fic entitled 'I Was Called Mary Once'. Had you been pondering how we got there? Hmm... maybe you should read this prequel! Read and Review!
1. Run Away, Little Girl

**An Author's Late Night Ramblings-** (There are a lot!) Wow! Thank you to all who have read and reviewed 'I Was Called Mary Once'! It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside that you enjoyed it. I was completely bowled over when Amy told me it was nominated for a P & P award! I was so honored, it means so much that someone liked my story enough to recommend it to the good people over at Proud & Prejudiced! So to whoever did so, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!! You made my week, probably my whole month of July as well.

This is the prequel to 'I Was Called Mary Once', and you should probably go and read that first, before this. It won't make that much of a difference, but if you don't the end of 'Mary' will be ruined, and we can't have that, now can we?

Disclaimer- I do not own the good people of Stars Hollow, or Hartford, for that matter. I do however; own most of the people that you will meet in Newport, Rhode Island. It promises to be a very interesting vacation for Miss Rory Gilmore, one she is most unlikely to forget!

And last but not least, to my wonderful and much beloved beta, Sara (Shouhei), I couldn't have done it without your wonderful words of encouragement, and putting up with all of my insane, completely random questions, which hopefully will make sense later in this story! I command you, go and read her stories, especially 'But I Love Him', which is so great, I can't even tell you, you just have to read and find out for yourself!

**

* * *

****The Last**

Chapter One- Run Away, Little Girl

Guilt. That had been what she had been feeling for the last two weeks. That was all she had been feeling. It was so acute, it was blinding, she was powerless to this emotion, and there was nothing she could do to make it go away.

She had slept with a married man. There was no getting around this. What had happened was wrong, and no matter what she did to justify her actions, she was still wrong. Nineteen years of taking the high road, of making the right decision, gone for a few moments of pleasure.

Who was she? This wasn't the Rory Gilmore that she knew.

Even though the only two people besides herself that knew what had happened that night were her mother and Dean, she still felt like everyone she came in contact with knew. They knew what she had done, as though she had a Scarlet 'A' sewn onto the front of her tee shirt. They knew and they judged her for it.

What had she been thinking? She had told her mother that she loved him, but now that she had had time to think about it, she was pretty sure that she didn't love him. It had been a lapse in judgment, a mistake, caused by loneliness and raging hormones.

Dean had wanted her. That had felt good, really good. It didn't matter that she didn't want him the way that he wanted her.

She, Rory Gilmore, had quite possibly broken up a marriage. It was completely irrelevant that they were having problems for a while now. Nothing could possibly make this situation better. She was the other woman.

She had been avoiding them both since that night. Well, to be accurate, she had been avoiding Lindsay since she had overheard Lane and herself talking in Doose's a few months ago. Avoiding Dean wasn't exactly a new practice either. Rory had gotten a lot of experience after both of their breakups.

To make it easier, Rory had accepted her Grandmother's invitation to spend the summer with her. Her grandfather had gone on an extended business trip, and Emily had moved back into the house. They had spent a few weeks in Hartford, and then tomorrow they would travel to Newport, Rhode Island, to stay with one of Emily's best friends for July and most of August.

Rory lived a very different life here with her Grandmother. Many mornings were filled with meetings and the afternoons filled with luncheons and garden parties. Nights were spent going to parties and social engagements. She now knew what her mother had been talking about most of her life. Everything was planned for her, right down to what she wore and when she brushed her teeth.

Her mother. How Rory missed Lorelai, even though she had been coming to visit her several days a week, complaining much about how she was now spending more time within those gates than she did when she actually lived there herself.

Today was a rarity, Emily didn't have anything planned for her, so Rory was enjoying the quiet by the pool, a copy of 'Emma' in her lap. Looking at her watch, she hoped that her mother would get there soon. Her grandmother had cancelled tonight's weekly dinner, opting for a late lunch instead. There was another soiree at the Lynn's. Part of Rory was hoping that Madeline and Louise would be there, for despite their differences, she missed the two. She had formed an interesting friendship with them those last two years in high school.

Life seemed so much simpler back then, when the biggest problems she had were avoiding a certain blonde irritant and studying for her finals. It seemed so long ago, despite the fact that she had only graduated one year prior.

Rory sighed, and once again immersed herself into the quaint little town of Highbury, which reminded herself a little of Stars Hollow. It was full of quirky, unique characters. Okay, so there was no oversexed dance instructor in Emma's little world, but the feeling of everyone knowing everyone else made her feel a little less homesick.

"Rory! There you are!"

Turning around on the lounge she was stretched out on, she saw her mother hurrying towards her, a large bag in her hand. "Hey Mom!" Rory called, standing up as Lorelai rounded the corner of the pool, nearly falling into it in the process. "Have a nice trip?"

"Haha."

"If it had been me you would have fallen in the pool laughing so hard."

"That is probably true."

They both laughed, and sat down at the table on the patio, and waited for Emily to come back from one of her DAR meetings. "Okay, I was listening to KRZ in the car today-,"

"A mainstream station?"

"It's not that bad."

"Mom, they play the kind of music that kills your brain cells."

"So?"

"Do you really want to lose any more?"

"What do you mean by 'any more'?" Lorelai asked, cocking her head to one side, crossing her arms. "I'll have you know that I don't listen to any music that 'kills brain cells."

"Mom, you have an N SYNC cd."

"Do not!"

"It's hidden in your top drawer, underneath your unmentionables." Rory states, to which Lorelai starts to giggle.

"What?"

"You said unmentionables." More giggles.

"Your point, please?"

"What are you, sixty?"

"Okay, back to the beginning. You were ridding yourself of that unnecessary brain matter..."

"And that new Maroon 5 song came on, you know, the one with the weird video?"

"It doesn't have a weird video."

"It has nothing to do with the song!"

"Yes it does!"

"There is no part of that song where he starts sleeping with his girlfriend's mother!" Lorelai cried out, getting frustrated again.

"We don't know that was her mother." Rory stated matter of factly.

"Oh, please. You are so naïve."

"They could be sisters."

"Kelly Preston is like, forty two!"

"So?"

"She wouldn't have a sister that young. Plus, she was married to the Ritz chips guy!"

"You mean George Hamilton?" Rory asked, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, that guy!"

"We don't even know if they were married in the video."

"Oh, please. Why else would she stay with a man that she obviously doesn't love, in what is obviously an abusive relationship?" Lorelai asked, knowing that she had won, the look of defeat was evident in her daughter's eyes.

"Why don't we return to the real topic?" Rory suggested, relenting.

"What was that again?"

"Mother, you were the one who started this inane conversation!"

"Hey, this is a perfectly 'nane' conversation."

"It's a what?"

"A 'nane' conversation."

"I don't think that 'nane' is a word, Mommy Dearest."

"Yes it is."

"No it's not."

"Yes, it is, my darling daughter."

"Fine, use it in a sentence, smarty pants."

After thinking for a minute, Lorelai smiled. "The opposite of 'inane' is 'nane'."

"That's cheating!"

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is!" Rory exclaimed, jumping from her chair. "You can't do that!"

"But I just did!"

"It's still cheating!

"No, it's not." She grinned. "You said use it in a sentence, you never said that it had to be a good one!"

"You're impossible." Rory sighed, flopping back into her chair.

"Oh!"

"What now?"

"I remembered the point of my story!"

"And what, pre tell, is it?"

"Okay, so their new song came on the radio, and I was listening to it, but then, a thought hit me!"

"Did it hurt?"

"Did what hurt?"

"The thought. You said it hit you."

"Eh, you know how hard my head is."

"Okay, so you had a thought..."

"All these songs seem to be about one person!" Lorelai exclaimed, excited about her realization. "I mean, all the songs appear to be about that guy's weird, twisted relationship with some girl." Now it was Rory's turn to giggle. "What?"

"Mom, you do know that the album is called 'Songs About Jane', right?" Rory asked, her giggles turning into full blown laughter.

"No, why?"

"They are all about his twisted relationship with some girl!" She choked out, laughing harder at her mother's crestfallen expression.

"You mean that everyone else knew about this?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Oh well. The lead singer is still hot, in that skinny, pretty boy way."

"Yeah, Adam Levine is nice to look at."

"What I would do to him..." Lorelai trailed off, her eyes glazing over a bit.

"Mom, ew!" Rory cried, snapping her mother from her naughty little reverie. "What would a certain coffee supplying diner owner have to say if he were here right now?"

"He'd probably hand me over and say, 'good luck!'" Lorelai joked.

"How's that going?" Rory asked, feeling a little out of the loop. Things were finally coming together for Luke and her mom, and she was missing all of it. But she wasn't ready to go back to Star's Hollow, she just couldn't do it yet.

"Good. Really good, great actually."

"I thought so."

"How do you figure?"

"Well, that hickey on your neck is pretty self explanatory." Rory joked.

"What? I thought that I covered that thing!"

"Mom! I was kidding! Ew, now I have bad pictures in my head!" Rory complained, covering her eyes.

"Hey, you asked, it's your own fault."

"Sure, that's what I'll tell my therapist."

"Honey, you don't have a therapist."

"Yeah, well grab the yellow pages, because after this conversation, I'm going to need one!"

"Lorelai, when did you get here?" Emily asked, walking out of the French doors leading out onto the patio.

"Just a few minutes ago, Mom."

"Oh, well, it's such a nice day today, I thought we could eat out here." Emily announced, taking a seat across from Lorelai and Rory. "So, Lorelai, how is that inn of yours?"

"The Dragonfly is doing wonderfully, Mom." She beamed, almost like when she talked to people about Rory. That's kind of what the inn was to her, another child. "We're doing another wedding there tomorrow, and we're booked until the end of the summer."

"That's wonderful."

"Yes, it is."

Libby, the maid of the week, brought out the salads a few moments after that. Rory had been staying with her grandmother for three weeks now, and it still amazed her how critical she was about her maid's performance. It was no wonder now of how Emily went through so many maids, she was too particular about them.

"So, Rory, do you have everything you need for your trip?" Lorelai asked, giving her a look. Rory knew what it meant. _What were you thinking, voluntarily going to Newport, Land of Stuffy Rich People, with Emily Gilmore, for a month and a half?_ She had been giving her that look for the past few weeks, ever since Rory had announced that she was spending the summer in Hartford, rather than at home, in Star's Hollow.

Lorelai had called her a coward. She said that Rory was running away, rather than face what she did. Lorelai was right, Rory was running away, but she had faced what she had done. It was on her mind every day, she asked herself countless times in countless ways, what was she thinking? She just wasn't ready to be in her room, to sleep in the bed that...

Lorelai glanced at her daughter, not quite knowing what was going on in her head. She knew that Rory felt guilty for what she had done three weeks ago, but she didn't know what to say to her. What she did was wrong, but she wasn't the only one in that room. HE was there too. As far as she knew HE hadn't even called her, or attempted to contact her in any way. HE was still playing the role of the loving newly wed husband to his unsuspecting wife. And that made her really angry.

"Yeah, I think so. I have everything on my list." Rory answered, taking a sip of her lemonade. "I'm excited, I've never been there before."

"Oh, you'll love Chateau du Sable, Rory." Her grandmother smiled. "It is one of the only cottages left on Bellevue Avenue that hasn't been turned over to the Preservation Society, and is the only one that doesn't have tourists trampling through the halls and gardens all day long." She scrunched her nose in distaste. "Lulu lives there for most of the year. She only leaves in the winter, for her health, but returns as soon as the snow melts."

"Lulu Carrington?" Lorelai asked, looking surprised. "You're going to visit her?"

"Yes, Lorelai, Lulu Carrington."

"No fair!" She cries, making a face. "If I had known that you were going to see Lulu, I would have sold the inn and gone with you!"

"Why?"

"Lulu is the coolest lady to ever walk the planet." Lorelai explained to a confused Rory. "Not only is she loaded, but she is kind and knows just about everything about anything! She's the one who taught me how to short sheet a bed, climb down a trellis with high heels, and-,"

"Lorelai, that's enough." Emily held up her hand to stop the flow of words escaping from her daughter' lips. "Lulu is a respected member of society, not the hooligan that you are portraying her to be."

"Mmhmm." Lorelai smirked. "She tells the best stories too. Just ask her about the time that their sorority mascot was stolen, and your old Grandmother here-,"

"Lorelai!"

"Fine, fine." She held up her hands in defeat. "As her when Grandma isn't around. That way she can't spoil it." Lorelai whispered to Rory.

Rory had to admit, when she had first heard that they would be staying with her grandmother's best friend, she hadn't been thrilled. But now, she thought, maybe this trip would be more interesting than she originally thought.

* * *

Grr... Arg! I had this all ready to go when I got home from work and got the green light, but the stupid wouldn't let me log on! And another quick thank you to my darling Sara, whom I sent a very frustrated email that sort of turned into a mini tantrum at the end. Thanks so much for putting up with me!

And I know, I know, HE's not in the story yet. HE will be, trust me! (And for those of you who didn't read 'Mary' yet, HE is most defiantely not DEAN! I have this hate for him, oh so many, many reasons to choose from, could it be his stupid floppy hair, or maybe the way that he always seemed to end up with Rory?!?! Ugh!


	2. Chapstick Anonymous

**An Author's Not So Late Night Ramblings-** Wow! I have to say, I am really happy with the reaction that this story is getting from my readers, especially since I just started it! I'm really glad that you are all enjoying it.

**_To California Dreamer:_** Wow! Glad that you liked 'Mary' enough to read this, even though it's not your ship. Jess will most likely never make an appearance in any of my stories, because I'm not a huge fan, and the conflicts involving him were solved, so I don't need to! I guess you have discovered my evil plan... I'm going to convert all Lits to Trories, one at a time... (Laughs evilly while rubbing palms together!)

To my dearest and most fabulous beta, Sara (Shouhei), without whom this chapter would probably be called something else. She is behind the title, and I thought it was completely inspired, much better than what I was going to call it! Sara, you rock my world, Dahling! Her story, 'But I Love Him' is coming along incredibly, I am so happy that I get a glimpse before everyone else! It is definitely one of my favs, and it should totally be one of yours too!

**Disclaimer: **I do not own any of the residents of Stars Hollow, or Hartford, for that matter. I do own most of the people that you will meet in Newport, Rhode Island. It promises to be a very interesting vacation for Miss Rory Gilmore, one she is most unlikely to forget!

And now, without further ado, on with the next chapter!

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Chapter Two- Chapstick Anonymous

"She did not!"

"She did so!"

"Wow." Rory said, shocked, but resumed applying her lip balm. She and Lorelai were up in her room, while Rory got ready for the party that she and Emily were going to that night.

"Shocking, isn't it?"

"Just a tad." Rory stated sarcastically. "I just can't believe that Grandma would do that!"

"Believe it."

"Wow." She said again, applying another coat of balm.

"You said that already."

"Yeah, well, it seemed appropriate."

"I suppose so."

"Yeah."

Lorelai looked around the room, taking in the walls, which Rory had purged of the boy band posters as soon as she got to the house. "I must say, this room looks much better now that you don't have Chris staring at you."

"Oh, please, you are such a closet fan."

"I am not!" Lorelai protested, which garnered a look from her daughter. "And even if I was, there would be nothing wrong with it. They are a quality band, and they did write a few songs on their last album."

"You mean they were a quality band."

"Hey! They're just taking a break!"

"Oh, please! Now who's being naïve?"

"What? They'll be back. Just wait and see!"

"Sure Mom, whatever gets you through the night." Rory rolled her eyes, setting down the brush that she had just run through her hair, and applied another coat of lip balm.

"Are you planning on using the whole tube hon?" Lorelai asked.

"What?"

"Babe, that's like the fourth time you've applied it in last ten minutes."

"That's not true."

"Now you're denying it."

"I am not."

"You just did it again!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, crazy lady."

"That's it, I'm enrolling you in CA."

"CA?"

"Chapstick's Anonymous. I figure that they'll be able to help you shake off this addiction you seem to have."

"You do know you're insane, right?" Rory asked, as Lorelai advanced toward her.

"Now Baby, give Mommy the lip balm." She coaxed, holding out her hand.

"Mom, stop."

"Rory, admitting you have a problem is the first step in your recovery. Now give it to me!" Lorelai attempted to snatch it from her, but Rory ducked under her outstretched arm at the last minute.

"I'm not giving it to you." She said, closing the door to her closet, pulling the dress she was going to wear to tonight's soiree off of its padded hanger. Slipping the silky blue fabric over her head, she walked out of the closet, her heels in hand.

"Ready to confess you're a closet chapsticker?" Her mother asked, grinning.

"What is with you and all these non-words today?" Rory asked, smirking. "First the 'nane' nonsense, now 'chapsticker'? Who taught you English, anyway?"

"Hey, not all of us can graduate valedictorian, Missy."

"That has nothing to do with my ability to use words that are already in existence."

"How do you think that new words are made then?" Lorelai countered with her hands on her hips, and a grin starting to form. "Someone has to come up with them, why not your beloved mother?"

"Whatever." Rory relented, turning around, pointing to the back of her dress. "Zip me."

"Say the magic word."

"Please."

"That's not the magic word."

"Abracadabra, then."

"Closer, but still not it."

"Mom, I don't have time for this. Grandma and I have to leave in like twenty minutes, and I need at least two cups of coffee before then."

"There it is! You just said the magic word!"

"Which one?"

"Duh! Coffee." Lorelai giggled, finally pulling the zipper up her daughter's back, fastening the little hook at the top. "Get with the program, Gilmore."

"How is abracadabra close to coffee?"

"Well, alphabetically speaking, 'A' and 'C' only have one letter in between them, while 'P' and 'A' have fourteen." She replied. "Hence, they are closer."

"You should be studied, Mom." Rory said, placing her much talked about lip balm into her evening bag, along with a small book.

"Really? Am I that good looking?"

"No."

"Ouch! That really hurts." Lorelai clutched her heart, falling dramatically back on the bed, Rory's fluffy pink comforter billowing around her. "Besides, you carry half of my genetic material, what does that say about you?"

"That I'm damn lucky that my father is attractive."

"Oh, the agony! And to think, I went through nineteen hours of labor, all for you to turn evil twenty years down the line!" She cried, thrashing around the bed in mock pain, knocking several throw pillows to the floor in the process.

"Drama queen."

"Hey!"

"I'm going to go and get some coffee, you coming?"

"Hell yeah!"

-

"Emily!" A woman called as she and Rory walked through the front door. "How lovely to see you!"

"Evelyn!" Emily greeted the woman warmly with a kiss on both cheeks. "It is wonderful to see you too. This is my granddaughter, Rory. I don't believe you two have met."

Evelyn Lynn clasped Rory's outstretched hand. "Oh, I feel as though I know you already Rory. Your grandparents speak very highly of you. You go to Yale, don't you?"

Rory nodded. "Yes, I do."

"Do you enjoy it there?"

"Yes, it is a wonderful school."

"It's a pity my Madeline didn't choose to follow in her father's footsteps. He's a Yale man, you know." Evelyn went on, pointing at a man with dark hair on the other side of the room. "Remind me to introduce you two later."

Rory looked around the room, and unfortunately, she didn't spot anyone near her age bracket. All the partygoers seemed to be at least forty. She didn't want to be there, but felt obligated, because her grandmother had wanted her to go with her.

"So, Emily, where is Richard tonight?" Evelyn asked.

"He is away on an extended business trip." Emily replied, not missing a beat. "He should be back by the end of the August."

"What are your plans for the summer, dear?" Evelyn asked Rory.

"Actually, Grandma and I are going to visit one of her friends for a little over a month."

"Really?"

"Yes. We are spending the summer with Lulu Carrington in Newport." Emily explained further.

"Oh, what a lovely woman. Her daughter Clara is here tonight, with her husband and their son." Evelyn commented, distracted by someone on the other side of the room. "Oh look, Emily, it's Paige. You simply have to hear the story about what happened between Gloria and Hunter. It's simply scandalous!"

As Evelyn Lynn led Emily off to one of their friends, Rory took the opportunity to slip away from them. She loved her grandmother dearly, but she didn't have any desire to hear any more gossip about who was sleeping with whom and which trophy wife had gotten a botched nose job. She had definitely gotten her fill at the meetings and luncheons that she attended with her grandmother.

She took off down a random hall, one that wasn't very populated, in search for a quiet place to read the book she had brought with her. The route she was taking seemed familiar, but she hadn't been in this house in over a year.

She was about to open a door when a faint sound stopped her. Intrigued, she followed it, and as she got closer to its source, she realized that someone was playing the piano in the music room. Whoever was playing was quite talented, she thought as she pushed open the door, the sight before her taking her completely by surprise.

"Tristan?"

Tristan Dugrey, who had been gracefully playing the piano, looked up, and slammed his strong hands down onto the keys, creating a dreadful sound. "Rory?"

"What are you doing here?" They both said in unison. Their eyes met and they both laughed nervously.

"I came with my parents, who I ditched as soon as I possibly could. What are you doing here, Rory? This is the last place I ever expected to see you." He said, his eyes never leaving her face.

"Wow, that's twice in less than two minutes that you called me by my real name." Rory smiled. "I feel like I should call the people over at Guinness, and let them know about it."

"If I remember correctly, Rory was just a nickname, Mary." Tristan smirked as she walked further into the room, stopping a few feet away from him.

"And the count stops at two." Rory rolled her eyes at the old nickname. It had been nearly three years since she had last heard it, and even though she didn't want to admit it; she had missed hearing it.

"I never thought that I would see you at one of these parties."

"I'm spending the summer with my grandmother, and she kind of dragged me here."

"You mean you didn't come here to see me?" He joked, his face a mixture of amusement and mock shock.

"Hah."

He slid over on the piano bench, giving her room to sit next to him.

"So, how was military school?" She asked.

"Don't ask." He shivered, running a hand through his hair, now an unruly mess again.

"Aw, did they cut your hair?" She mocked him, as soft smile playing on her lips.

"Have you ever seen a military school attendee with hair like this?" He smiled, pointing to the top of his head.

"Nope. They usually have much nicer cuts than that."

"Ouch."

"Yeah, well the truth hurts, baby."

"Baby?"

"I could always go back to Satan, if you prefer."

"I'll think about it, and get back to you."

"Sound's like a plan."

"So, how is Harvard?"

"I'm not the person to ask. If you want to know about Yale, however, I'm your girl."

"So what happened, if you don't mind my asking. You seemed very adamant about going there." He asked, turning more to get a good look at the beauty that was sitting beside him. If it were possible, she was more breathtaking than the last time he saw her.

"I didn't want to leave my mom. We're really close, and Yale isn't as far away, after all." She explained, taking note of the changes about him. His shoulders seemed broader, his features more defined, but there was something in his eyes, something she couldn't quite place. "Plus, my grandfather went there, and my grandparent's really wanted me to go there."

"Huh."

"Hey, Yale is just as good as Harvard, buster." Rory shot at him, getting annoyed. "Where did you end up?"

"Princeton."

"Huh." She mocked. "I guess it's a good thing I didn't decide to go there, then."

"And why is that?"

"Because I'd have to deal with you every day."

"Hey, that hurts, Ror."

"Three."

"What?"

"Three." She repeated.

"I heard you, but what does 'three' mean?"

"That is the number of times that you haven't called me 'Mary'." Rory smirked. "I thought that Princeton was supposed to be a good school."

"It is, they just don't have 'Rory Gilmore 101 in their curriculum."

"See? What did I tell you? Yale is better."

"I don't remember you saying that."

"Well, it is quite obvious. After all, Princeton doesn't have me, now does it?"

"Nope, I guess not." Tristan smiled, but his heart was racing. What was it about this girl that always seemed to send him spinning out of control? He never thought he would see her again, and now she was sitting next to him.

"This is a little déjà vu-ey, isn't it?" Rory commented softly. _God_, she thought. How was he doing this? She had only been with him for a short time, but she could feel herself getting lost in his blue eyes. In the past, she had always caught herself before she did something stupid, but she could feel herself gravitating towards him, and there was nothing she could do about it.

"Déjà vu-ey?" Tristan raised his eyebrow. "Is that even a word?"

"Non words seem to be the thing to say, today at least." Rory smiled at the memory of her mother's antics earlier. "Anyway, I meant that we were here, on this bench three years ago." She bit her lip nervously. What was she thinking? He probably didn't even remember that kiss. After all, she was just one girl in a long line of other women that he had probably had, maybe even on this very bench.

"Yeah, we were." He said, his voice dropping an octave as he remembered that night. He had never felt a spark quite like that before that night. Hell, he had never felt a spark like that after that night, for that matter.

Rory bit her lip, and nervously ran her hand through her hair, or she tried to, anyway. Her finger caught the hoop that was dangling from her ear, and it rolled away, somewhere under the piano.

"Shoot." She said, moving off the bench to fetch her earring. Crawling on her hands and knees underneath the baby grand, Rory spotted a flash of silver, and reached for it.

Her fingers closed around the average sized hoop, and she began to back out from under the piano, but she startled herself when she backed into one of the legs, and hit her head on the underside of the piano.

Tristan heard a muffled thud, followed by a soft "Owww". It was more than obvious that she needed some help, or she might cause serious brain injury.

"Here." He said, stooping down beside the large instrument, taking her hand to lead her out. Once again in the light, she leaned against the side of the piano, rubbing her head. "Are you okay?" He asked, his voice full of concern.

"Yeah, I don't think any permanent damage has been done." She joked, attempting to control her heart rate. He was so close to her, he must have been able to hear it as it attempted to pound out of her chest.

"You sure?" Tristan surveyed the damage, desperately trying to ignore the feeling of her silky hair slipping through his fingers.

"I think I'll live." She smiled, looking into his eyes.

Bad idea.

"Yeah, I guess..." He trailed off, leaning in slowly, his eyes never leaving hers.

Their lips met, soft, feather light at first, but it quickly accelerated from innocent to searing, as the pressure of his lips increased, searching for an answer to an unasked question.

She passionately deepened the kiss, threading her fingers into his hair, pulling him closer. Rory had never felt like this before. Even their last kiss had been marred by her guilt over Dean.

She clamped down on that familiar feeling that was beginning to rise within her. Nothing was going to ruin this moment, especially not Dean.

The need for oxygen was becoming urgent, but he didn't want to break their connection. Tristan fought against all of his body's natural urges, which were screaming for air. He didn't want to pull away, only to see her crying again.

Rory couldn't breathe, but she didn't care. The only thing that she cared about was that she was kissing... Tristan? What was going on here? She hadn't seen him in almost three years, and suddenly, she's in his arms, her lips on his. What was she doing?

"Rory!"

"Rory!" She reluctantly pulled away from Tristan; both of them dazed, heads still spinning. But Rory did hear her Grandmother's voice as she floated back down from the lofty haze she had been in.

"I... that... we..." She struggled to find words, but couldn't seem to make her brain think straight. "My... grandmother... she's..." Rory tried to make a coherent statement, which was still difficult. "I have to go." She finally got out, leaving his embrace, unable to look back as she hurried out the door.

* * *

What? You didn't think it was going to be that easy, did you? 


	3. Who'da Thunk It?

**An author's late night ramblings-** Hi, long time no see! So sorry about the long wait for this chapter, I didn't mean for it to be this long, but I got my wisdom teeth out, and I wasn't exactly what I would call coherent. Actually, I wasn't what anyone would call coherant. I don't exactly react well to anesthesia, or pain killers, but I have a pain tolerance of like -20! Seriously, I can't handle pain at all, I scream bloody murder when I get a paper cut!

As always, much love goes out to the supremely wonderful beta extrordinaire, my darling Sara (Shouhei). I love her to pieces, she totally rocks. Go and read her story 'But I love him, it is absolutely awesome! And thank her profusely for the fact that this chapter is readable, because God only knows what I sent her while taking my meds!

I had a blonde moment while writing the author's note in the last chapter, and forgot to thank my favorite little sister, my Eri Berri! She and I actually had the 'Chapstick' convo in the car the day that I started to write chapter two, and I fogot to give her credit for it. So, here and now, I thank my awesome, super, beautiful Zibby for all her help, with that chapter and this one! My space bar queen, I love you!

Okay, so has everyone seen the previews for season five? Is everyone as annoyed and angry about the way that they are taking the Rory that we all know and love and throwing it out the window and onto the street to get run over by a steamroller? I swear, if I didn't know that they had already cast a love interest for Rory, (who isn't Dean, for those of you who don't know) I'd totally stop watching! (Alright, alright, we all know that's not true... I'm hopelessly addicted to the show!)

Oh, yeah, and one more thing. I wrote a little one shot fic on Saturday night, called 'Going For the Gold' but for some reason, it isn't showing up on the GG page with all the stories on it. So I'm going to give myself some free advertising, and ask you to please read it, and review!

Okay, enough of my yakking, on with the story!

* * *

Chapter Three- Who'da Thunk It?

"Damn."

Tristan watched as Rory walked, no, as she ran back out of his life as quickly as she had entered it. He could still feel her lips on his, her hands in his hair. He had wanted to feel that for so long, it seemed like a dream. But this time, it wasn't a dream.

It was REAL.

Why didn't he stop her? Why did she run? Why did she always run from him? If he didn't know better, he would have sworn she thought he was a bad kisser. But if it wasn't the kiss, what was it?

Maybe it was him.

He definitely didn't want to think about that possibility. But then, she was the only girl who had ever run from him, and she hadn't just run once. What else could it possibly be?

He needed to talk to someone about this.

_**Meanwhile...**_

"Mini Me!" Lorelai called, bursting through the door of Rory's room at eight the following morning. "Wake up, wake up, WAKE UP!" She sang loudly, jumping on the bed where her daughter was currently residing.

Rory yelped as something big and loud landed right on top of her. Scrambling out from underneath whatever was crushing her, she groaned. "Mom, what are you doing here at this ungodly hour?"

"Waking you up."

"Well, thanks for that."

"No problem. I was happy to do it!"

"I was being sarcastic, Mother."

"Ah, but you see, I wasn't."

"Why are you so chipper this morning?"

Lorelai just smiled, or rather, grinned from ear to ear. Rory, now fully awake from the shock of her mother landing on her, realized why her mother was so happy.

"Oh, ew."

"What?"

"I don't want to know anymore." She repeated, making a face. Rory really didn't need to about her mother's relationships in that much detail.

"I was just going to tell you that my Blaine is going to the Olympics!"

"He is? I love Blaine Wilson! He is so hot!" Rory exclaimed, surprised by her mother's answer. It was not what she had expected, to say the least.

"I know!"

"It's too bad he's married. Even though he's too old for me, and too young for you."

"He's not too young for me!"

"Mom, he's thirty."

"So?"

"You're thirty six."

"That means nothing. Demi has a decade and a half on Ashton, what's six years?"

"I think that you've lost sight of reality in this situation. He's married, and his wife's not you, Mom."

"Thank you so much for reminding me, Ror."

"Well, what are daughters for?" Rory smirked, turning to pull a tee shirt from her drawer. "At least you have Luke."

"Yeah, I guess I do."

"Gee, can you be more excited?"

"No, I mean, yes, I can be more excited." Lorelai rambled. "I am excited. This is going good. It's just..."

"Just what?"

"Well, last night, he came over, and we... had coffee." Lorelai amended, catching the look on Rory's face.

"So you... 'had coffee.'"

"Yeah, really good coffee. Really, really good coffee. Really, really, really..."

"I get the picture." Rory held up her hand to stop the words flowing freely from her mother's mouth. "No need to elaborate."

"Anyway, this morning, I get up, and there's a note that said that he had to go to the diner and that he would see me later."

"Uh huh." Rory sat back on the bed, next to her mother. "Continue."

"So, I'm up, and I go downstairs, and there's coffee."

"Oh, wow. Coffee in our house. What are the odds?" Rory snickered, rolling her eyes.

"Hey there Missy. If you don't hold back that little wit of yours, I'm not going to finish my story. Then you'll never know the end, and you'll have to spend the rest of your life with my unfinished life story hanging over your head."

"Somehow, I think I'll survive."

"Fine." Lorelai crossed her arms over her chest, and watched as Rory went about her business, getting ready for the two hour ride to Newport. "Ugh, I can't take it!"

"I knew you'd cave."

"I have no willpower." Lorelai made a face. "So, I walk downstairs and see that he made me coffee!"

"Well, he is a professional, you know."

"Yeah, but this is Luke."

"Yes, it is."

"He made me coffee."

"Yes, he did."

"He made me coffee, after we... had coffee."

"Okay, we need to come up with a new code for this." Rory decided, not wanting to get any evil pictures in her head every time she drank her favorite beverage.

"Yeah, you're probably right. I wouldn't want to scar you."

"Thank you for your concern."

"I'm dating Luke." Lorelai stated softly, as if just realizing it herself.

"Yes you are."

"Me and Luke."

"You and Luke." Rory nodded, leaning her head on her mother's shoulder.

"Who'da thunk it?" Lorelai smiled.

"Just about half the town."

"No."

"Yes."

"You're cracked."

"I am not." Rory sat up, turning toward her mother. "Everyone else could totally tell that you two were perfect for each other."

"They could not!"

"They could too!" Rory smiled. "There was a pool."

"A what?"

"A pool. We all put money in to bet on when you two would finally figure it out."

"And everyone knew about it?"

"Yeah, kind of."

"Wow." Lorelai leaned back, taking in this new information.

"Hey, could you do me a favor?" Rory asked, moving off the bed and picking up the list of things she had packed to bring with her.

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Could you pick up my money from Ms. Patty?" Rory grinned evilly.

"You! You bet on your only mother's love life?!" Lorelai exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at her daughter. "How could you do that, evil daughter?"

"What can I say? It was easy money." Rory shrugged, checking off the items on her list as she found them in her bags.

"So how long has this been going on?"

"A few years, I think."

"And everyone knew about it?"

"Yeah, Ms. Patty started it, and she and Sookie are in charge of collecting the bets."

"My BEST FRIEND?"

"Yep."

"You've gotta be kidding me."

"Nope."

"What did you bet on?"

"Huh?"

"What were the terms?" Lorelai asked, walking back to the bed, taking a seat on the edge of the pink comforter.

"Well, there were all different ones."

"Like what?"

"I bet on you guys finally getting together before I graduated from college." Rory replied.

"When did you do that?"

"When I was ten."

"This has been going on for a decade?!" Lorelai exclaimed. "How did I not find out about this?"

"How did you not know that Luke was perfect for you?" Rory asked her, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't know. How did you?" She asked.

"He makes the coffee, you drink the coffee. What could be more perfect?" Rory explained.

"Yeah." Lorelai leaned back on the pillows, looking thoughtful. "So, what do you think about me and Luke?"

"Well, I did bet fifty bucks on the inevitability of you two, what do you think?"

"Seriously, you're okay with this?" Lorelai asked.

"Mom, we love Luke, we always have. I mean, he's great."

"So, you approve?"

"Wholeheartedly." Rory smiled. "After all, my 'new daddy' is already knows how I like my coffee, a skill that is very hard to master."

"Don't you think you're getting a little ahead of yourself?"

"What do you mean?" Rory asked.

"We've been dating for less than a month. Isn't a little premature to start calling him your 'new daddy'?" Lorelai raised an eyebrow.

"Well, hopefully not."

"And why is that?"

"Because then I'd lose a bundle in the pool." Rory said simply, walking out the door to go and get some breakfast.

"Hey! You bet on my marital status too!" Lorelai exclaimed, following her down the stairs. "What kind of daughter did I raise?"

_**Three Hours Later...**_

"Are you sure that you want to go?" Lorelai asked Rory for the millionth time in the last few weeks. "I'm sure that your Grandmother wouldn't be too hard to persuade if you decided to stay with your dearest Mommy."

"I'm going." Rory stated, putting her small car bag in the back of the car. "Mom, we talked about this. I need to go."

"I know, I know. I just miss you." Lorelai relented.

"Well, maybe you could come and visit for a few days." Rory suggested hopefully.

"Maybe. I'll see what happens with the inn, we are going to be pretty busy for a while." Lorelai said. "Maybe you could come up here for a few days, and then go back."

"Mom, visiting Stars Hollow during my vacation would kind of be like going back home, wouldn't you say?"

"Damn." Lorelai sighs dramatically as she snaps her fingers together. "You have discovered my master plan."

"Well, I do go to Yale, you know." Rory smiled, giving her mother another hug. "I'll miss you though."

"Well, it would be impossible not to, wouldn't it?" Lorelai joked, fighting back the tears that she can feel starting to form.

"Yeah, it would."

"Rory! We have to go!" Emily stuck her head out of the back of the car, for the third time. "Honestly, how did you two survive the school year if you can't say goodbye for a month?"

"Well, we were going to have the summer together." Lorelai mumbled morosely. "I'm horrible at goodbyes."

"Lorelai, we know that." Emily rolled her eyes. "Hence why you two have been bidding your farewells for a half an hour!"

"Alright, alright." Now it was Lorelai's turn to roll her eyes. "My darling daughter, I bid you farewell!" She swooned dramatically, putting a hand to her forehead. "Now go, before it becomes too unbearable!"

"Bye Mom." Rory kissed her cheek and gave her a final hug, then slid into the backseat next to her grandmother. "I'll miss you!" She cried out the window as Charles, the chauffer, pulled the car out of the driveway.

As the window closed, Rory could feel the tears start to fill her blue eyes. She knew that this moment would come, but she didn't think it would be that hard. Before, when she was staying in Hartford, Lorelai had been visiting every few days, and she was only a twenty minute car ride away.

Now, she was traveling further than she had ever been from her mother. A whole one hundred and three miles and two hours away from her. Okay, so that was a little dramatic, and maybe she had spent a few weeks in Washington D.C. the summer before her senior year, but she hadn't stayed for this long. A tear rolled slowly down her cheek as she stared out the window.

"You are going to love Newport, Rory." Emily smiled, patting her arm encouragingly. "It's a lovely place, full of history and beauty. The old mansions are utterly breathtaking, and the views are to die for."

"I'm sure they are, Grandma." Rory said softly, turning to face her. "Tell me about the place we're going."

"Chateau du Sable is one of the most beautiful by far." Emily gushed. "The grounds are exquisite, you'll adore the gardens. Lulu keeps them in amazing and rare form. The house is impeccable. Like I told you yesterday, it is the only home left on Bellevue Avenue that doesn't have people trampling through it all day long, snapping pictures, and loitering about."

"That sounds nice." Rory smiled slightly, picking up the travel pillow next to her bag. "I think I'm going to nap for a while."

"Are you feeling alright?" Emily asked, pressing the back of her hand to Rory's forehead. "Is your headache back?"

After leaving Tristan in the music room the night before, she had convinced Emily to leave early, pleading a headache. "Maybe." Rory closed her eyes. "I'll be alright."

"_What do you mean he had you pulled out of school? What happened?" Rory asked, a feeling of panic rising in her throat._

"_Nothing. Just ticked the old man off, that's all."_

"_By doing what? Tristan, come on, tell me." She prodded, trying to understand why this was happening._

"_I got in some trouble."_

"_Trouble involving?"_

"_Involving Duncan and Bowman, and Bowman's dad's safe." He told her, reluctantly._

"_Oh no."_

"_I mean, Bowman had a key. It was supposed to be no big deal. And the crazy silent alarm kicked in."_

"_You broke into Bowman's dad's safe?" She asked incredulously._

"_Yes."_

"_Stupid."_

"_Yes." _

"_Well, okay, you can apologize and you can put back the money and you can explain that, I don't know, you were going through something." Rory suggested, trying to think of a way to get him to stay._

"_I was, I was going through his safe." Tristan said simply._

"_Why would you do this?" _

"_I don't know. I guess that's something I can ponder at military school."_

"_Military school?" She repeated, surprised._

"_The police are letting our parents handle it, and in my case that means military school in North Carolina." He explained further._

"_I don't know what to say." She struggled to find the words._

"_Well, I imagine you're overwhelmed with the relief in knowing that soon I will be gone." _

"_I'm so sorry." She said lamely. _

"_Well, I'm a big boy. I can handle it."_

"_There's nothing you can..." She trails off as a figure appears at the end of the hallway._

"_Tristan, come on." His father calls to him._

"_I gotta go. So, I might kiss you goodbye but, uh, your boyfriend's watching. Take care of yourself, Mary." He says with a final smirk. Rory smiles as she watches him walk down the hall, and out of her life..._

"Rory!" She awoke with a start. Emily was lightly shaking her shoulder and calling her name. "We're here."

"Oh." She mumbled, sitting up. "Sorry, I didn't mean to sleep the whole way."

"That's alright dear." Emily said, stepping out of the car as Charles opened the door for her. "As long as you are feeling better now."

"Yeah, I guess so." Rory said, sliding over on the seat and taking the chauffeur's offered hand to get out, and she got her first look at the place she would be calling home for the next few weeks.

The sight took her breath away. She had thought that the homes in Hartford were incredible, but this was definitely not the 'cottage' that her grandmother had described. The marble was tan, the color of sand, and the architecture was unlike anything she had ever seen up close. The columns and pillars snaked their way up to the roof, and there were actual towers! Chateau du Sable really lived up to its name. It really did look like a sand castle.

"Emily!"

Rory had been admiring the sweeping front lawns when she heard a woman call out her grandmother's name. Turning around, she was surprised by the sight that greeted her. Emily was hurrying over to a woman wearing a pair of ancient khakis, complete with dirt and grass stains covering the knees. Her blue button down shirt had a patch on the arm, and a pair of pruning sheers in the pocket. The outfit was finished off by a large straw hat that had a packet of seeds stuck in the blue ribbon that was tied around it.

"Lulu!" Emily exclaimed, throwing her arms around the other woman. This was Lulu Carrington? This disheveled woman covered in dirt from head to toe? She lived here?

This woman was definitely not what she had envisioned when she had heard her grandmother talk about her very best friend. She had thought of someone regal, and stately, and definitely not... like this.

"Rory, come here!" Emily called, giving Lulu another hug. "Rory, this is my oldest and dearest friend, Lulu Carrington. Lulu, this is my granddaughter Rory."

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Rory." Lulu held out her hand, which, not surprisingly, had dirt under the manicured fingernails. "Your grandmother talks of nothing but you."

"It's nice to meet you too." Rory said politely. "Your home is beautiful."

"Why thank you." Lulu smiled, leading them into the house. "It has been in my family for generations. I was out in the gardens, which should help to explain the attire."

"Lulu has the most beautiful gardens in Newport, Rory." Emily commented, linking arms with her friend. "She's always outside, dancing among the flowers."

"Well, I don't know about the dancing, but I do love spending time among my beautiful blossoms." Lulu laughed. "They are my favorite part about this house."

She led them down the hall to a bright and sunny room that over looked the gardens in the back of the house. Tall floor to ceiling windows covered two walls, giving the effect of being outside, but inside.

"Rory, you are in luck." Lulu said as they sat down at the table. "Now, I can't imagine that spending your summer with a pair of old ladies is a recipe for a fun summer. What young person in their right mind would enjoy that?" She laughed. "But my two grandchildren showed up on my doorstep yesterday, and it seems that they will be staying with us too."

"Oh." Rory answered, trying not to sound too enthusiastic. As much as she loved her grandmother, she had been spending a lot of time with her. And Emily could be a little exhausting. How many meetings could woman attend, and how many functions could she possibly plan single handed?

"Now, if I'm remembering correctly, you're a Yalie, right? Following in Richard's footsteps?" Lulu continued, motioning for a maid to bring them tea. Rory nodded. "My granddaughter Mollie is planning on attending in the fall. She should be in shortly, I believe she and her cousin are out by the pool."

"Oh, isn't that lovely!" Emily smiled, taking the cup that Lulu handed her. "Now Mollie will have a friendly face on campus."

"Oh, there she is now. Molls!" Lulu motioned to the teen who was currently walking past in the hallway. "Come here and meet out guests."

"Mollie, you remember my friend Emily, don't you?" She asked when the girl was in the room. "She and her granddaughter Rory will be staying with us."

"Nice to meet you." Mollie said politely, holding out her hand to Rory and Emily. She was very pretty, with golden blonde hair, and captivating green eyes. There was something familiar about her though, even though Rory was sure that they had never met before.

"Hey Gran, who's car is in the driveway?" Rory's eyes widened at the sound of the voice coming from behind her. Snapping her head in the voice's direction, her mouth formed an 'O' when her eyes confirmed what her ears had heard.

Standing in the doorway, was Tristan Dugrey.

Here.

In Newport.

With her.

Who'da thunk it?

* * *

I must say, I am a bit disappointed that no one caught on to any of my little hints about Tristan in Chapter Two! They weren't very obvious, but then again, I don't think any I ever give you will be! 


	4. Regrets?

**Author's Sort of Late Night Ramblings-** I know, I know, I am SO sorry for the extremely long wait for this chapter! Things got crazy, and I didn't really have time to write. The only option was failing out of college, and I really don't want to say 'Welcome tothe ZOD, how may I help you' for the rest of my life. I feel bad about it, but chapter four is really, really long! I hope that you all take that little olive branch as a peace offering and don't kill me!

This chapter is kind of a bridge from the first part to the rest of the story. It sets up a lot, you might not even see all of the little tidbits, but trust me, they are there. You also get to know my new characters that I introduced you to in the last chapter, hopefully you all remember Lulu and Mollie! They are interesting, and are a very central part in Tristan's life.

Thank you to my wonderful, super de duper beta, Sara, who is incredible at stroking my ego! She is great at telling me her honest opinion of my writing, and has been my life saver many times! Her stories, especially 'But I Love Him' are awesome, so go and read them!

My favorite baby sister, Erin. This chapter is for you, as you finally gave me that swift kick in the butt that I so desperately needed to get back in gear. Without you, I would still be putzing around, and all of my readers would be left hanging!

To my readers, thank you so much for putting up with me. It makes my day to see a review in my inbox, I get so excited whenever I get one! (HINT, HINT!)

**Disclaimer**- I don't own Gilmore Girls, or the good town of Newport, Rhode Island. Come to think of it, I don't own The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, either! (Actually, I do own a copy of this perfectly lovely story. I also own the sequal, The Second Summer of the Sisterhood, and in January, I will also own the third, Girls in Pants, the Third Summer of the Sisterhood.) It's a must read, so well written. It is quirky, and fun, and the four girls weasel their way into you heart from the very first page!

Enough of my yammering, on with the story!

* * *

Chapter Four- Regrets? 

"Tristan?"

"Rory?"

_Oh God_

_Oh God._

"You two know each other?" Lulu asked, noticing the deer in the headlights look currently residing in both teen's eyes.

"Oh! I remember!" Emily smiled warmly. "Tristan came to Rory's birthday party. They were friends at Chilton."

"You could say that Grandma." Rory couldn't tear her eyes away from him. What were the odds that she would ever see him again? Before last night, she hadn't seen him for over three years. Now, she was faced with spending the entire summer with him.

"Yeah, you could say that." Tristan agreed, still staring at Rory. What was she doing here, in his grandmother's house? He knew that Lulu was having her best friend and her granddaughter stay for the summer, but...

_No._

Rory Gilmore was staying here, in HIS grandmother's home for the summer. Tristan didn't know what to think about this surprising new development. On the one hand, he and Rory Gilmore was going to be living under the same roof. They would be around each other all the time, she couldn't escape him.

And on the other hand, he and Rory Gilmore were going to be living under the same roof. They would be around each other all the time, and he couldn't escape her. That was the reason he had decided to come to visit his grandmother in the first place. He didn't want to deal with seeing her around Hartford, watching her from across the room at parties, and not be able to be with her.

"Why don't I get you settled into your rooms while Tristan and Mollie go and get changed?" Lulu suggested, still watching the way that neither Tristan nor Rory could tear their eyes from the other. "Then we can all meet on the veranda for a late lunch."

"What a wonderful idea, Lulu." Emily smiled, linking arms with her old friend. "Come along Rory."

Finally tearing her eyes away from Tristan, Rory wordlessly followed Emily and Lulu from the room, leaving a confused Tristan and a very nosy Mollie behind.

**--&--**

Rory looked around at her new surroundings. The bedroom that she had been given was beautiful, deep blue walls, high ceilings, and windows that looked out over the sweeping expanse of gardens in the back of the house, gardens which seemed to go on forever, meeting the ocean in the far off distance.

But the beauty of her surroundings was lost on her at the moment. All she could think about was Tristan, and that kiss that they had shared, and the fact that he was in Newport, staying in the same house.

She had never expected to see him again. The truth was, she had thought about him a lot over the last three years. Rory hadn't told anyone about that, not even her mom. She just couldn't, not when she didn't really understand what she felt for him.

While she felt something for him, something that never really went away, Rory knew that she didn't love him. How could you love someone that you didn't even know? But she did care about him, and she definitely didn't hate him.

Rory had always felt drawn to him. What girl in their right mind wouldn't be? He was hot, there was no denying that. But it was so much more than that. It was the way that his blue eyes would sparkle on those rare occasions when he would genuinely smile. The look in his eyes when he would back her up into her locker. The way that he smirked when they would banter. Or the playfully teasing way that he would call her 'Mary.'

She had kissed him again. The first kiss they had shared had been great, but the second, even she, the proud owner of The Oxford English Dictionary, couldn't put the second kiss into words. They all seemed to pale in comparison.

That was the problem.

What right did she have to feel like that, after what she did? Rory wished, more than anything, that she could take back that night. But she was stuck with it. She had wasted a big moment in her life, one that she could never take back. Her first time had been with someone that she didn't love, who didn't love her, and on top of it all, didn't even belong to her. She had slept with a married man. Someone else's husband.

What if she made another mistake? What if she was only imagining that she had feelings for Tristan? Before she had slept with Dean, she had really believed that she had loved him. And maybe she had, in a friendly, first boyfriend kind of way. She definitely didn't love him enough to have sex with him.

There was only one person who could help her.

"Gilmore Crematorium, you choke em, we smoke em!" Lorelai's cheerful voice rang out through the phone.

"Well, that's one way to get rid of those pesky telemarketers!" Rory laughed, temporarily forgetting her problems.

"Rory?"

"No, it's your other daughter."

"Wait, how do you know about Candice?"

"Mom."

"Don't worry, you're still my favorite. I did give you my name, after all."

"Mom, please be serious."

"What's wrong, Hon?"

Rory didn't know where to start. "Well, you see..."

"No, I don't."

"Don't what?"

"See. After all, you are in Newport, and I am in Stars Hollow, where you abandoned me to go and play polo and shop for tiaras with the rich people." Lorelai rambled. "So I couldn't possibly see what you are seeing."

"If you can't be serious, just tell me, and I'll go and find someone else to talk to!" Rory yelled, all of the emotions of the last twenty four hours finally getting to her.

"Babe, calm down." Lorelai soothed. "I promise to be serious, unless, you don't want me to be, in which case, I will be funny, sweet, or whatever you need me to be. What happened?"

"Everything is so messed up."

"What is messed up?"

"Everything. I thought you were listening."

"I am, I just don't know what 'everything' entails."

"Tristan is here."

"Tristan who?" Lorelai asked, bewildered.

"Tristan Dugrey? Bible Boy? Spawn of Satan? Boy who made my life hell for my first few months at Chilton?"

"He's there? In Newport? With you?"

"Yeah."

"Wow."

"I know." Rory sighed, walking over to the window seat, looking out at the beautiful landscaping.

"It's been what, three years since you last saw each other, right?"

"Not exactly."

**--&--**

After showing Emily and Rory to their respective rooms, Lulu went on the prowl for her grandson. She didn't know what was going on, which she hated, but she was definitely going to find out, even if it killed him.

Tristan knew that she would be on the lookout for him, and had successfully evaded her so far. He should have known that when Lulu Carrington wanted something, she usually got it. It was a trait that she had passed on to both her grandchildren.

So, after a good hour and a half of searching, she finally found him in the billiard room. Why she hadn't decided to look there sooner, she didn't know. It had always been a favorite place of Tristan's, reminding him of the hours of talking he and his grandfather had done while playing.

_If only Teddy were still with us_, Lulu thought, clutching the locket around her neck, closing her eyes. Her husband, God rest his soul, was good with Tristan, always patient, understanding, as he had been with her. She had a good relationship with both her grandchildren, but Tristan and Teddy had always had a special connection. Maybe it was because Tristan was so like her, and Teddy had spent almost sixty years learning how to handle her.

"So, would you like to tell me what that was is going on?" Lulu asked, announcing her presence at last. Tristan jumped, and turned quickly.

He didn't know why he was so surprised. Tristan knew that she would find him eventually, she always did. But he didn't want to talk, and he hoped she would get the hint.

But she ignored his pointed look. "I guess not." Lulu smiled kindly, deciding to take a different approach with him than she normally took with Mollie, or even Teddy.

Tristan was very different. He kept things bottled up inside, very rarely letting anyone see what was going on inside of him. He had always been like that. Yet another thing that she had passed on to him, Lulu thought wryly. His parents, her daughter Clara and her husband Gregory, had definitely not helped the matter, never paying much attention to him, and sending him away...

It still saddened her that Clara had let Gregory enroll him in that horrible Military School, especially one so far away. How in the world had she, who had raised both of her daughters to be independent, confident, and opinionated, ended up with two that were so submissive? Where had she gone wrong?

Picking a pool cue from the rack, Lulu decided on her plan of attack. "Okay, I'll make you a deal. You. Me. One Game. You win, you get to walk out of here, and get to keep whatever is bothering you to yourself. But if I win, well, get ready to sing like a songbird."

"I don't like those odds." Tristan grumbled, not wanting to talk. Why couldn't she leave him alone?

"Well, the only other option is that we skip my kicking your sorry little butt around this pool table, and go straight for the jugular." Lulu shrugged, a smirk on her face at seeing his eyes roll at the thought of him losing. "This way, you get a glimmer of a chance to keep your secrets."

"You're going down." Tristan said, causing the smirk to turn into a wide grin as she saw the competitive nature that her family was known for shine brightly in his blue eyes.

"Whatever let's you sleep at night, pal." Lulu said, the trash talk beginning.

Almost a half an hour later, it was Lulu who was the victor. "Eight ball, corner pocket." She said, watching as the cue ball knocked the last solid in. Inwardly, she did a little happy dance. "Pay up."

Tristan sighed, and pulled himself up to sit on the green felt next to his grandmother. "That's her." He said reluctantly.

"That's her?" Lulu repeated, confused. What kind of an answer is that? Then, it dawned on her. "Oh! _That's her_."

"Yeah."

"Well, this is rather fortunate, don't you think?" She smiled, nudging Tristan's shoulder with her own.

"I'm not so sure about that." Tristan jumped off the table to pace in front of her. "The girl I've wanted for so long, is right here, what if nothing has changed?"

"That's not true, Tristan, and you know it." Lulu stated firmly. Why was he trying to make it sound like he hadn't changed? Why was he trying to hide the fact that he had grown up?

"Yeah, I changed. A lot of good it did me." Tristan said, a hard edge in his voice that Lulu hadn't heard in years. "Even now, three years later, I still can't get her out of my head. Why can't I get her out of my head?"

_Maybe you're not supposed to. _Lulu thought to herself. He was so agitated, he had run his hands through his messy hair a half a dozen times in the past two minutes. Why was he so agitated? This was not the way that you normally react at just seeing someone after years of not having any contact. Something else was going on here. "Did something happen yesterday?"

"I went to that stupid party, you know, the one that Mother was trying to force me into going to." Tristan began, resuming the steady pacing that he had been doing moments ago. "Anyway, I made small talk for a little while, then I escaped, like I always do. I searched for a while, looking for a good hiding place, and finally ended up in the music room."

"Mmhmm." Lulu murmured. "Continue."

"So, I'm sitting there, playing the piano, when it hits me. This is THE music room. I was sitting at THAT piano, on THAT bench, where I kissed her for the first time."

"Wow." Lulu raised her eyebrows, then narrowed her eyes a bit as his words sunk in. "What do you mean, 'for the first time?' What haven't you told me?"

"I'm getting to that, Gran."

"Oh."

"So, just as I'm thinking about this, guess who walks into the room, and back into my life."

"Well, I'll be damned." Lulu looked shocked. "You kissed her again, on that same piano?"

"Yeah." Tristan involuntarily smiled at the memory of her lips on his. "She dropped her earring, and ended up hitting her head on the underside of the piano. Then I kissed her."

"Well, I guess that takes care of that."

"Takes care of what, Gran?" Tristan asked, looking very confused.

"If I'm not mistaken, didn't the young Miss Gilmore tell you a few years ago that, 'barring safe or piano falling on her head,' never go out with you?"

"Yeah?" Tristan didn't quite see what she was getting at.

"Well, considering that if one actually did fall on her, she probably would be six feet under by now, I think that just hitting her head should suffice in taking care of that."

"That's what you think." Tristan's blue eyes clouded over again. "She ran away again."

"Again?" Lulu sighed, understanding his weird behavior towards the girl now. In his eyes, everyone left him. His parents had never stayed long, always flitting off to one exotic location or another, leaving him with a long string of nannies, and when his grandfather had passed away five years ago, Tristan had closed down, keeping everyone at arms length. "Oh, Tristan, I'm so sorry."

"I just wish that... never mind." Tristan trailed off, and Lulu let it drop, not wanting to alienate him just now. "I just had to get out of there. I couldn't just stay there, knowing that she would always be across the room, wherever I went."

Lulu remembered the myriad of expressions that had run over the girls face only a few hours ago. "Maybe luck is on your side for once. She's not seeing anyone. Emily told me that much on the phone a few days ago. You're never seeing anyone significant. Maybe, just maybe, being under the same roof..."

"That's a nice little thought Gran, but you're forgetting one thing."

"What's that?" Lulu asked, wondering what was so wrong with what she had been thinking.

"She still doesn't want anything to do with me." Tristan said, his voice cold as he turned to the door, yanking it open and leaving her to follow after him.

**--&--**

Mollie knew that eavesdropping was bad, she really did. But this was just too juicy to pass up. Tristan, and the girl whom he was crazy about under the same roof? Another kiss? Running away again?

She didn't have any time to react as Tristan suddenly opened the door, causing her to topple backward to avoid being trampled. "Ouch!" Mollie squeaked, her head hitting the marble floor with a thud.

"Serves you right." Tristan glared at her, offering a hand to help her up. "You know what they say about curiosity killing the cat, don't you?"

"Then I guess I'm lucky that I'm a girl, and not a feline." Mollie answered, rubbing her head. "I think I'm bleeding."

"No, you're not." Tristan rolled his eyes. "If you were, your hair would no longer be blonde, but bright red."

"I'd make a very attractive redhead." Mollie grumbled. "It's just that blondes have more fun."

"Tristan, we're not-," Lulu charged out the door but stopped talking as she saw Mollie. "Hello, darling. What are you doing out here?"

"Learning the evil's of eavesdropping." Tristan smirked, remembering how his cousin had gone flying.

"Hey, I wouldn't have to resort to that kind of tactic if you'd just tell me what's going on." Mollie countered, still soothing the knot that was quickly forming on the back of her skull.

"Why are you both so interested in my life?" Tristan asked, frustrated. "Why don't you both just leave me alone and focus on your own lives?" He turned away, starting to leave.

"Tristan, we're not finished." Lulu said, putting a hand on his arm.

"Yeah, Gran, we are." Tristan answered, pulling away. "I need some time to think."

Mollie and Lulu watched as Tristan disappeared around the corner. "Well, I suppose you can't blame him. His pride took a serious blow last night."

"I think that maybe your dear cousin is right." Lulu said, ignoring her last statement. "Maybe we should focus on your problems for a little while."

"Maybe we shouldn't." Mollie backed away from her grandmother. "Maybe we should go back to Tristan's problems."

"That wasn't really a suggestion, Molls, and you know it." Lulu advanced on her granddaughter. "Why don't we play a nice, friendly game of pool?" She suggested, leading an unsuspecting Mollie into the billiard room."

**--&--**

"What do you mean, 'not exactly'?" Lorelai asked.

"Well, you know that party that I went to last night?"

"Uh huh."

"Tristan was there."

"Uh huh."

"And we started talking."

"Uh huh."

"And it wasn't the horrid experience that it could have been."

"Uh huh."

"Is that all that you are going to say? Uh huh?" Rory asked, getting agitated with her mother again.

"Uh uh."

"That's it, I'm hanging up." Rory snapped.

"NO! WAIT! DON'T HANG UP! I PROMISE TO BE MORE VERBAL!" Lorelai screamed. The only problem was, Rory hadn't attempted to hang up the phone yet.

"Ow! Mom, what the hell are you trying to do, deafen your only child?" Rory said, nursing her ear after switching the receiver to the other one.

"Sorry, you just said that you were hanging up, I needed to find some way to stop you." Lorelai giggled. "And besides, usually when someone says 'I'm hanging up', they hang up."

"Yeah, well..." Rory trailed off, still coddling her left ear, though the pain had been fleeting.

"Okay, so back to what you were saying." Lorelai said, returning them to their original conversation. "You saw him, you talked, and it wasn't horrible. Gotta tell you, I'm not seeing the problem here, Sweets."

"Well, I'm getting to it."

"When?"

"Now."

"So, what happened?"

"Wesortakissed." Rory said quickly.

"What? Come again?"

"We sort of kissed." Rory repeated, louder and slower this time.

"Wow. On that same piano."

"Well, next to it."

"Same difference. And not the point."

"Yeah, I know." Rory sighed.

"So, what happened after?" Lorelai asked, wanting all the details.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

"Are you sure?"

"No."

"Well?"

"I sorta, mighta, kinda, maybe... ran away again." Rory admitted softly.

"What do you mean, again?"

"I did run away from him for real a few years ago."

"How do you run away from someone, anyway?"

"I don't know."

"And I thought you said this kid was hot."

"I don't remember saying that, Mom."

"Well Ror, in general, the boy who rules the high school is pretty easy on the eyes. Or his trust fund is the biggest." Lorelai giggled.

"Alright, so Tristan might not be horrible to look at. But that doesn't fix the problem."

"What exactly is the problem?"

"That I'm a bad person." Rory said softly, her eyes filling with tears. "What right do I have to feeling like that when I slept with Dean?"

"First of all, you are not a bad person, you are a good person who did a bad, and very stupid thing. One mistake doesn't change who you are, honey." Lorelai soothed, trying for the millionth time to make Rory understand that someone is not defined by their mistakes alone. "And second, feeling like what?"

"I don't even know how to describe it, Mom." Rory said, wiping the tears from her eyes. "When he kissed me... I don't know, it just seemed..."

"Unreal?" Lorelai supplied, knowing the feeling well. "Like you couldn't believe that any person could actually make you feel like that?"

"Yeah." Rory smiled softly. "I just don't want to make another mistake, Mom."

"Honey, making mistakes is a part of growing up. I make them all the time."

"Well, I don't." Rory said. "At least, I didn't."

"Rory, if you don't make mistakes, how are you going to learn?"

"I can learn by your mistakes."

"As appealing as that it, you need to make some of your own." Lorelai smiled. "What do you want to do?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"I have to think about it."

"Didn't you just tell me that Tristan is staying at the same place you are?" Lorelai asked.

"Yeah, so?"

"So, didn't you also tell me that when Tristan kissed you, fireworks went off, people burst into song, and flowers magically bloomed?" Lorelai prodded.

"I didn't say that."

"I know, I embellished a little."

"I'd say, a little more than a little."

"Well, how can you ignore feelings like that?"

"That's part of the problem."

"What's the problem?"

"I don't think that I can ignore the way I feel about him." Rory sighed into the phone. "And I don't think I want to, either."

**--&--**

Mollie was relieved. She had narrowly defeated Lulu at the last shot of the game. They had really cut it close, fortunately, Mollie had won, and got to keep her secrets. Not for long, though, for she knew that it was just a matter of time before her grandmother figured it out.

"Wow." Mollie said out loud, to the empty hall. "I can't believe that Tristan is so lucky." Her grandmother had filled her in on what had happened between her cousin and Rory Gilmore, and she was surprised at how serendipitous this summer was. After all, what were the odds that they would both be in the same place at the same time? It seemed to Mollie that John Cusak was about to jump out at any moment.

However, it was not John Cusak that she very nearly collided with as she rounded the corner. Mollie screamed, and stumbled back, while the other person did the same.

"Geez, you scared the living daylights out of me!" Mollie said, putting a hand over her heart as her breathing returned to a normal rate.

"Yeah well, ditto." Rory mumbled, standing up. She had lost her balance and fell back. "You sure scream loud. Only my mother is louder, and that is saying something."

"Why thank you." Mollie smiled. Maybe she could get the scoop straight from the other horse's mouth. While she knew what Tristan thought and wanted, no one had any idea about what Rory felt. "So, how's it going?"

"You mean, other than huge bruise I'm getting?" Rory smiled, rubbing her butt. "This floor is really hard."

"Tell me about it." Mollie groaned, running a hand over the large bump on her head. "So, you're spending the whole summer here."

"That's what they tell me."

"Ooh, I love that book." Mollie exclaimed, pointing to the copy of **The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants** that Rory had in her hand. "I've read it like five times already."

"Really? I'm just starting it, but I love it already." Rory's eyes sparkled, excited about finding another person in the house who enjoyed the book as much as she did.

"I guarantee, you will adore it." Mollie assured her. "It's an awesome book."

"That it is."

"Do you like to read?" Mollie asked, and Rory laughed.

"Well, I packed more books than I did clothing, so I'd say so."

"Really?" Mollie was surprised. "So did I!"

"My mom always makes fun of me for that."

"Yeah." Mollie's eyes clouded over.

"So, what else do you read?" Rory noticed the change in her, and wanted to steer the conversation back from where it had gone, even though she wasn't sure what exactly had triggered it.

"The question is more, 'what don't I read', than anything else." Mollie said. "I'm working on reading every book in this house's library. Except the Hemingways. I can't suffer through his works."

"I think that this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Rory said a grin forming on her face. "Hemingway is brutal."

"Yeah, Tristan hates him too." Mollie couldn't resist casually dropping his name into the conversation, to see how Rory reacted. "Pop loved him, and was always trying to convert us over to the dark side."

"So, you and Tristan are close?" Rory asked, trying not to sound too obvious.

"Yeah." Mollie smiled inwardly, not letting Rory know that she knew what she was doing. "He's a great guy. I know I can always count on him to be there for me when I need him."

"Really? Because the Tristan Dugrey I knew isn't that kind of guy. Rory commented, raising her eyebrows. "He was cocky and annoying, self centered, and-,"

"Yeah, that's who he used to be." Mollie cut her off, silencing Rory. "He's different now, back to the way he was before that, before Pop died."

"Your grandfather?"

"Yeah. He and Tristan used to be really close. When he died, Tristan couldn't deal with it, and kind of closed in on himself." Mollie explained. "I think he was angry at Pop for dying, even though he's never said it. Tristan just started doing stuff that he knew that Pop would hate, like meaningless sex and drinking and partying."

"Oh." Rory couldn't think of anything else to say.

"But then he got himself shipped off to military school, and it kind of beat him back into submission." Mollie continued, noticing the way that the girl's facial expressions were changing. "Slowly, he kind of reverted back into the old Tristan. The nice one. The fun one. The one that people can count on for more than a good time. Although, from what I've heard, you can still count on him for that too." She made a face. "Ew. I just talked about my cousin having sex. Gross."

"Bad pictures?" Rory asked, not surprised when Mollie nodded. "Yeah, I've been getting them a lot lately too." Rory made the same face just thinking about her mother and Luke. Oh, the therapy bill was going to be a big one.

"Really?" Mollie closed her eyes, and was yet again greeted by unpleasant images. "So, what's Yale like?" She inquired, trying to change the subject.

"It's a great school." Rory smiled. "I love it. The professors and the classes are really hard, but you learn so much."

"You sound like the tour guides." Mollie rolled her eyes. "Are the parties any good?"

"I wouldn't know." Rory said. "I'm not much of a party girl."

"Well, we can change that."

"I don't know, you'll be fighting against nineteen years of not partying."

"I've had harder challenges."

"We'll see about that." Rory smiled, glad to have made a new friend in the house. Maybe this summer wouldn't be so bad after all.

**--&--**

The gardens really were beautiful. They were vibrant with color, healthy and dewy. Emily was right, Rory thought, as she walked aimlessly down one of the many paths. She heard a faint splashing sound not too far ahead, and decided to check it out.

There he was. Tristan was standing at the edge of a large pond, a small pile of smooth, flat rocks next to him. He chucked another one at the water, causing it to hover over the surface for a few moments before sinking beneath the murky depths.

"How do you do that?" She asked, breaking the silence surrounding them.

Tristan turned around sharply, not expecting to see her. They hadn't spoken since the night before, and he honestly hadn't expected her to be the one to make the first attempt at conversation.

"Do what?"

"That." She repeated, pointing to the pond.

"Skip rocks?" He asked, watching as she nodded her head. "Well, first you have to find a nice, flat stone. Then, you throw it parallel to the water. Oh, and it doesn't hurt to have some pent up frustration too."

"I guess I deserve that."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry Tristan."

"Yeah."

"I am."

"Then why do you keep doing it?" He asked, turning to skip another stone.

"What do you mean?" Rory asked, although she already had a pretty good idea of what he was talking about.

"Why did you run away again?"

"Tristan, think about it. We haven't seen each other in three years, and all of a sudden, we're kissing at some party."

Tristan smirked a little. "Trust me, I remember."

"I don't do things like that. I don't just meet up with hot guys and start making out with them."

Tristan smirked again. "You think I'm hot?"

"Not the point, Tristan." Rory rolled her eyes.

"Alright, we can come back to that later." Tristan relented. "You still didn't answer my question."

"I don't know what I'm doing. I have made some really, really, really big mistakes lately, and I just don't want to add any more to the pile." Rory explained softly.

"So, what, that kiss was a mistake too?" Tristan asked, his eyes growing cold.

"No, it wasn't a mistake." Rory said quickly. "I don't regret it."

"So, you don't regret it." Tristan asked, moving closer to her.

"No I don't."

"And I know that I don't regret it." He said, getting even closer.

"Yeah, but..." Rory trailed off.

"No, no buts. Let's just leave it at you don't regret it, and I don't regret it."

"Are you a closet FRIENDS fan?" Rory asked, giggling softly.

"What?"

"That sounds a lot like what Rachel said to that Joshua guy in the fourth season."

"Yeah, okay." Tristan tried to play it off, rolling his eyes.

"You are!" Rory gasped, jumping up and down. "You are a closet FRIENDS fan!"

"So? It's funny, plus, Jennifer Aniston is hot." Tristan shrugged.

"Pig."

"Whatever you say."

"However..."

"Now that's just a fancy 'but'." Tristan smiled.

"Seriously, we haven't seen each other in three years."

"Yeah, I know."

"And then, within like ten minutes of our little reunion, we are joined at the lip."

"Yeah, I know."

"And then I realized something."

"What is that?"

"I don't know anything about you." Rory said, wringing her hands. "We were never friends. We don't know anything about one another."

"What are you saying?"

"That maybe, we could try to be friends."

"Friends?" Tristan repeated, a skeptical look in his eyes.

"Friends." Rory said firmly.

"I guess we could try that." Tristan smiled at her. _For a while._

"Great." Rory smiled back at him. A bell rang out in the distance. "What's that?"

"That, would be the dinner bell." Tristan said, grabbing her hand. "We better get moving, Gran hates when people are late for meals."

"But it's not dinner."

"Late lunch, same bell."

"Oh." Was all Rory could say, as she followed behind him as they made their way to join the rest of their group on the veranda.

* * *

REVIEW! 

Please? I'll give you a cookie!

Any kind you want!

Chocolate Chip, Oreo, whatever your little hearts desire, as long as you review!


	5. Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measu...

**An Author's Kinda Late Night Ramblings-** I know, I know, I suck. I had stuff to do, mid terms and all. It was hard to find a time to sit down and write.

Okay, so someone left me a review saying that Tristan was somewhat wishy washy or something like that. Trust me when I say, he is not. I love Tristan Dugrey. I love that he is a bad ass. I will keep him a badass. As for the part in the previous chapter, when Mollie and Rory are chatting about the change in Tristan, well, that was my take on him. I don't think that one girl rejecting him sent his whole life into such a tailspin that he started to break into safes and get sent to Military School. I mean, I suppose it's plausible, but I just don't completely buy it. So I did some modifying. I'm allowed, as I am the author here! (LOL)

To my wonderful Sara, (Shouhei) there aren't enough good adjectives to describe you. She has become such a great friend, as well as a beta, and I'm so grateful that she continues to put up with me, and my multiple versions of the same chapter! Go and read 'But I Love Him', her trory, which is absolutely amazing. 'Those Words' and 'Note to Self' are great too! I promise you, that if you read, you won't be disappointed. Her stories are fabulous!

Okay, so, I made a whole bunch of chocolate chip cookies, got some oreos, and I even went up the road to 'The Cheesecake Factory' and got a few slices. Then I got to thinking: I don't have any of your addresses. Plus, if I did send them to you, then they would probably be stale and broken by the time that they got to your homes. So I ate them. All of them. Trust me, they were good, really good. And I don't feel bad about it at all. So there!

**Disclaimer-** See a character in this story that has appeared on the show? I don't own them. See a character in this story that doesn't seem so familiar? They're mine, all mine! And just ask my siblings, I don't like to share!

On with the story!

* * *

**Chapter Five- Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures**

Friends.

That's what they had decided to be. Actually, that was what Rory had decided they should be. And Tristan had willingly gone along with it. She hadn't expected that.

So that's what they were. Rory Gilmore and Tristan Dugrey. Friends.

At least, that's what they were pretending to be.

Tristan would pretend that he didn't want to jump her as she sunbathed by the pool in that black bikini.

Rory would pretend not to notice. She would also pretend that she wasn't staring at him when he came back from one of his afternoon runs, his golden tan glistening enticingly with sweat.

But there was no way in hell that Tristan could pretend that he didn't notice. It just wasn't in his genetic makeup to ignore that.

It was amusing to watch them banter, argue, and try desperately to ignore what they felt for one another. And Mollie and Lulu had definitely been watching.

They were perfect for one another. Just perfect.

Why weren't they together? That was the question on everyone's mind, and no matter how many times it was asked, they were never given a sufficient answer.

That could only mean one thing.

There was no sufficient answer.

**--&--**

"Chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin?"

"Chocolate chip." Rory answered. She and Mollie were lazing about, stretched out on lounges by the side of the pool. In the past two weeks, she had formed a pretty good relationship with her. Mollie was kind of like a hybrid of both Gilmore girls, so she and Rory were getting along famously.

"Old Sabrina or new Sabrina?"

"Old definitely. Harrison Ford and Julia Ormand can't hold a candle to Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart."

"Buffy or Angel?"

"Buffy. But only when Angel was on it."

"Fair enough." Mollie agreed. "The show did get kind of weird after that, especially when they changed networks."

"Yeah. I mean, they killed her! The show was never the same after she died. Plus, the major eye candy was gone, so there was no real point in watching." Rory adjusted her sunglasses. She was attempting to get some sort of a tan while she was here, after all, lying in the sun didn't really require any effort, and the weather had been beautiful since she arrived.

"Brad Pitt or George Clooney?" Mollie asked, continuing their little game.

"Brad, of course."

"Really? I'm more of a Clooney fan."

"He's not bad. Okay, so Coke or Pepsi?"

"Pepsi, definitely Pepsi."

"Will and Grace or Jack and Karen?"

"Jack and Karen, all the way. They crack me up."

"'Pride and Prejudice' or 'Sense and Sensibiltiy?'"

"Niether. I'd rather read 'Emma'." Mollie grinned. "Prince William or Prince Harry?"

"Wills. He's much more attractive."

"Really? I like Harry. He's more of a badass."

"Yeah, but William is going to be king one day."

"So is that what you look for in a guy, Mary? A title?" Rory turned around, her breath catching slightly in her throat as Tristan walked over to her, clad in his swim trunks. "I thought you were deeper than that."

"Hey! I am deep. It's just, there is something extremely attractive about a guy who can make you a queen." Rory answered, trying not to blatantly stare at his impeccable physique.

"So, if Prince Charles came up to you right now and proposed, you would accept?"

"With those ears? I don't think so!" Rory made a face. "Harry and William are extremely lucky that their father married their mother. Can you imagine what they would look like with that Camilla woman's DNA?"

"Her teeth alone give me nightmares." Mollie shivered. "I can't believe that he would cheat on Diana to be with that woman. Ew!"

"Seriously. Aren't you supposed to leave the wife for the beautiful, younger blonde?" Tristan smirked. "I think he did it backwards."

The two girls nodded in agreement, and the three teens lapsed into a comfortable silence, enjoying the moment of quiet and peace in the beautiful, sunny summer weather.

**--&--**

"So, what are we watching?" Tristan asked, walking into the home theater with a gigantic bowl of popcorn. "It better be good, Molls. I refuse to watch 'Clueless' with you for the millionth time. That movie is pure pain."

"Hey! 'Clueless' is a great cinematic achievement, I'll have you know!" Mollie shot back playfully. "But we're watching something way better than that."

"And what would that be?" Tristan inquired, sitting in the middle of the leather couch.

"We will be viewing what some might call the scariest movie ever made." Mollie informed him, putting a DVD into the player.

"What are we watching Molls?" Tristan repeated his question, getting a little apprehensive about this movie. With his cousin picking the flick, they could be in for anything. "It's not the second 'House on Haunted Hill,' is it?"

"Ew, no." Mollie made a face. "Why wouldanyone want tomake such a shoddy reproduction of a classic?"

"Hey, where's Rory?" Tristan asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

"She'll be here in a minute." Mollie tried to suppress the knowing smirk she knew was threatening to appear. "Actually, Rory's the reason that we're watching this movie tonight."

"Why is that?"

"She's actually never seen 'Nosferatu.'"

"How is that possible?" Tristan was bewildered by this piece of information. "Isn't she some self proclaimed movie buff?"

"She is." Rory answered as she entered the room, a giant cup of coffee in one hand, a bowl of candy in the other. "But that doesn't mean that she's seen them all."

"Yeah, but this is the best vampire movie ever made!"

"But it's a silent movie!"

"I thought that it would make it easier for you to talk through it." Tristan smirked as Rory sat down next to him. "No pesky dialogue to have to speak over."

"But half the fun is talking over the actors." Rory took a sip of her coffee, leaning comfortably against the soft, buttery leather.

"Where's the play button?" Mollie was staring at the room remote, looking at the many buttons. She finally chose one that she thought would start the movie, but instead, the red velvet drapes shot open.

Tristan grabbed the remote from her, and easily started the movie. Mollie sunk into the couch, pouting. "How did you figure it out so fast?"

"Not all of us are as technologically challenged, Molls." He stated simply, which made her huff more. "You might want to put that coffee down, Rory."

"Whatchu talkin bout Willis?" Rory narrowed her eyes, her fingers curling protectively around her cup. "No one gets between a Gilmore and her coffee."

"Well, by the end of the first scene, there won't be anything at all between you and your coffee. Not even the cup."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that in about ten minutes, you'll be wearing it."

Twenty minutes later, Rory was glad that she had reluctantly followed Tristan's advice. Her face was buried in his shoulder, and she was watching the movie with one eye. Every moment that passed, she pressed herself more firmly against Tristan. This was the scariest movie she had ever seen, and quite possibly, the scariest movie ever made.

A loud squeak came from somewhere on the other side of the couch, and Rory cautiously looked up to see a blurry form leap over the back. Her eyes focused to the darkness, and the figure of Mollie came into view. Mollie was cowering behind the couch, with only her eyes and forehead visible as she continued to watch the movie from her hiding place.

Count Orlok returned to the screen, causing Rory to burrow herself deeper into Tristan. Even though she was scared to death, she had never felt safer in her life. Not even with Dean, who was supposed to be her 'safe choice.' She had never truly felt safe with him. And Jess wasn't exactly the poster boy for security either. But with Tristan... well, something about him screamed out to her that he wouldn't hurt her. It was that voice that was making it increasingly harder to remember why it was a good idea to remain friends with him.

That made her nervous. Why did she feel like this with him? Why Tristan?

Tristan really didn't care why she was clinging to him, only that she was. The feel of her next to him, her arms around him, holding on for dear life was the only feeling that mattered at that moment. He slid his arm around her waist, his fingers tracing soothing circles in her hip as she pressed against him further. He never wanted this feeling to end.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.

So do movies.

"Well, I'm not going to sleep tonight!" Mollie informed Rory and Tristan as she flopped back onto the couch after Tristan had hit the stop button. She was unable to hide the smirk when she realized that Rory didn't seem to have any intentions of removing herself from Tristan. This was going to be too easy, Molly thought to herself. She couldn't wait to tell her grandmother.

"Really? Because I'm not going to sleep, like ever!" Rory shivered at the images that were still playing in her head. "How did they make that movie so scary anyway? It was made in the twenties!"

"Must be that cinematic magic they're always talking about." Mollie shrugged, and headed into a small room connected the theater which housed all of the films, slides, cds, records, and other media in Chateau du Sable. "And now, for something a little lighter, so some of us can get our beauty sleep tonight!"

"What's that?" Rory asked. Mollie turned and chucked the DVD box at her, which Rory caught. Or rather, it hit her shoulder, and landed in her right hand. Close enough, Rory thought to herself.

Tristan groaned loudly as he peered over Rory's head, which, much to his surprise, was still resting against his chest, and saw the movie that his cousin had selected. "Come on, Mollie, anything but 'Clueless!'"

"If you'd like, I could go and get that 'Care Bears' video." Mollie smiled sweetly. "It's your choice."

"Please, Tristan, don't subject me to an hour and a half of singing and dancing stuffed animals!" Rory pleaded. "I'd rather keep my IQ if you don't mind."

"Hey! Don't knock the 'Care Bears!'" Mollie narrowed her eyes. "I love them, and might have to resort to physical violence if you badmouth Grumpy or Wish Bear."

"I could take you." Rory shot back. Actually, she probably couldn't, as she had found out that Mollie was very athletic, setting many records for her Swim team at Harrington Prep, and had won the Newport Mixed Doubles Tennis competition with Tristan every year for the last six years.

"Ug, fine." Tristan relented, attempting to keep the peace between the two girls. Plus, if they just watched another movie, it meant more time with Rory, who seemed to be in a very cuddly mood. And there was no way that Tristan Dugrey was going to say no to that.

"Great!" Mollie skipped back to the couch as Tristan pressed play on the remote.

**--&--**

"Why, hello Dear." Lulu greeted her granddaughter the next morning. It seemed that they were the only early risers in the house. Once Tristan had escaped Military School, he had gone back to his routine of emerging from slumber no later than eleven. According to Rory, no one roused a Gilmore Girl before noon, unless they had a death wish, or someone's head was on fire.

Emily was a different story. Lulu knew that her best friend wasn't sleeping well. She had put Emily in the room next to her own, and she could hear her pacing well into the late hours of the night. That wasn't like her. Lulu and Emily had been roommates during their four years at Vassar, and Emily had always been a heavy sleeper. Usually, as soon as her head hit the pillow, she was out.

Lulu knew that this could only be attributed to one thing. Emily missed Richard. She was worried about the state of her marriage. If only she would talk about it! Lulu had been making one failed attempt after another to get her to open up, but nothing had worked.

Something had to give. Lulu thought. She was going to get it out of Emily soon, even if she had to resort to tying her to a chair. Lulu had done it before, and she wouldn't hesitate to do it again.

"Morning, Gran." Mollie smiled cheerfully. Plopping down on the seat next to her grandmother, she poured herself a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice.

"I'm surprised you're up." Lulu commented, buttering a croissant, hot from the oven.

"Would I ever miss breakfast with my favorite Grandma?" Mollie teased, and thanked the cook as she placed a plate of waffles in front of her.

"So, what did you do last night?"

"I watched two people deny their 'oh so obvious' attraction to one another. And I watched a movie." Mollie answered through her large mouthful of waffles.

"What did you watch?"

"We watched 'Nosferatu.'"

"Devious. I'm so proud!" Lulu beamed at her granddaughter. The little schemer was coming into her own so well. Using a scary movie was textbook for scaring a girl into a man's arms, after all.

"I learned from the best." Mollie took a long sip of her juice. "Besides, it was time for drastic measures."

"How so?"

"They've been tiptoeing around each other for far too long."

"It's only been two weeks."

"I know, I'm shocked that Tristan's lasted this long!" The two laughed heartily at Mollie's comment, it was very true. Tristan Dugrey was a lot of things, but patient was not one those qualities. This girl must be different, Lulu thought. Anyone who could cause such a change in her grandson must be worthy. The question was, was Tristan worthy of her?

* * *

What are you waiting for? 

Review!

Please? I'll be your best friend!


	6. The Soundtrack of Your Life

**An Author's Pre Turkey Ramblings-** Hello all! I hope that your Thanksgivings are all going well... or went well, depending on when you read this! I finally got this chapter done, so hopefully, none of you will feel the urge to stone me!

Thanks go out to my beta, Sara (Shouhei) who went above and beyond for this chapter. She was such a great help to me, with picking out the songs that appear. She just finished her first Trory, 'But I Love Him' and it is absolutely incredible. I will miss the updates, but all good things must come to an end. And that story was definately a good thing! If you haven't already, read it!

Another person to thank is my baby sister, who fought for a song to appear in this chapter, and gave me a challenge on how to incorporate it. Thank you Erin!

**Disclaimer-** I do not own Gilmore Girls, or any of the songs listed, or the novels that I talked about. But you should either listen or read them all. They are all great!

Enough talking, more reading!

* * *

**Chapter Six- The Soundtrack of Your Life**

_**Would you look at her**_

_**She looks at me**_

_**She's got me thinking about her constantly**_

_**But she don't know how I feel**_

_**And she carries on without a doubt**_

_**I wonder if she'll ever figure out**_

_**I'm crazy for this girl**_

"Hey!" Mollie cried out, jumping back to escape the shoe that came hurtling in her direction. "Watch it!"

"What the hell are you doing Molls?" Tristan groaned, pulling a pillow over his head to drown out the music that was playing at top volume in his room. It was eight o'clock in the morning, way too early for her to be torturing him. "Trying to kill me with mediocre boy band music?"

"Hey, Evan and Jaron are not mediocre!" Mollie exclaimed, hopping onto Tristan's bed. "They had a couple of hits, you know."

"Name one."

"The Distance, Crazy For This Girl… I can't think of any more. But they did have two, and that's more than The Rembrandts, or Sisqó."

"The Thong Song." Tristan pulled the pillow away from his head, revealing a smirk. "That brings back some memories."

"God, Tris, you are such a guy." Mollie rolled her eyes. "Does everything have to come back to sex?"

"Yeah, I think it does." Tristan's eyes twinkled. "So, would you like to inform me of the reasons behind this horrible, early morning serenade?"

"Hey, you should be grateful that you have a wonderful cousin like me, who loves you enough to go search the internet to create your very own soundtrack." Mollie flashed him a smile as she slid off of his bed again.

"What?"

"I was bored, and I made a soundtrack to attest to the unrequited love that you feel for our houseguest." Mollie smile grew wider as she picked up the stereo remote from his desk.

"I'm not sure I want to hear this." Tristan grumbled, his head sinking back against his pillow. He didn't really need this right now. Not after the phone call he had with his father last night.

"Well, too bad." Mollie pressed the skip button. "I worked on this for like, two hours last night, after you disappeared, and Rory got kidnapped by her grandmother."

_**Thinking back before her**_

_**I never knew the meaning of alone**_

_**Still the flag is feeling foreign**_

_**I live the day to escape into the phone**_

"Can't you pick any good music?" Tristan complained loudly. "Why are you subjecting me to this cruelty?"

"Hey! Ben Jelen rocks!" Mollie narrowed her eyes. "He was featured on 'One Tree Hill.'

"Ooh, another WB teen drama." Tristan rolled his eyes dramatically. "They're all the same. They start off with at least one of the main characters in their sophomore year in high school, and then quickly fizzle when they get into college. They don't have any redeeming value to them."

"They aren't supposed to be redeeming, it's The WB, not PBS, Tristan." Mollie rolled her eyes. "And 'Felicity didn't start as a high school sophomore, just so you know."

"That's because the show was about a college freshman and her inability to choose between those two guys who just kept falling for her crap, over and over, like idiots."

"Shut up." Mollie stuck out her tongue at him, skipping to another song.

_**We might make out**_

_**When nobody's there**_

_**It's not that we're scared**_

_**It's just that it's delicate**_

"Who the hell is this?" Tristan asked. "He's actually not that bad."

"This is Damien Rice." Mollie sighed, a dreamy look on her face. "He's amazing. I'm so in love with his voice, it's not even funny."

"Why is he so special?"

"His album 'O' is the sixteenth best album from Ireland." Mollie sighed again, listening to the words. "And he's kinda cute, plus, he's got that accent."

"Ooh, sixteenth best from _Ireland_." Tristan said sarcastically. "That's amazing."

"Why do you make fun of my music?"

"Because it's fun." Tristan smirked, finally sitting up, though still in bed. "What's next?"

_**If tomorrow never comes**_

_**Will she know how much I love her**_

_**Did I try in every way to show her every day**_

_**That she's my only one**_

"Oh, good God!" Tristan moaned, leaning back to stare at the ceiling. "Why do you torture me so?"

"Okay, okay, I get the hint!" Mollie pressed the button again, selecting another track. "Now, I know that you'll like this one. If you don't, then you will be stoned to death by music fans everywhere."

_**Oh my love for the first time in my life**_

_**My eyes are wide open**_

_**Oh my lover for the first time in my life**_

_**My eyes can see**_

"Finally, some good music!" Tristan exclaimed, relieved that he wasn't being subjected to any more torture.

"If you don't like John Lennon, then you aren't a music fan." Mollie shrugged. "I mean, he started like, everything."

"Yeah, and now his songs are endorsing Nike shoes." Tristan commented.

"Michael Jackson really was a skunk with that one." Mollie crossed her arms. "I mean, to buy Paul McCartney's own music right out from under him, and then to say it was 'just business?' Ew."

"Yeah, I mean, those weren't just songs. That's his legacy. Paul and John put everything into their music, and now they are selling sports equipment and fast food."

"At least 'Wacko Jacko' is getting what he deserves now."

"True. I bet that Paul is just salivating as he waits for Michael to get so in debt that he has to sell the rights."

"Yeah, but in reality, he'll probably just sell 'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds' toEstee Lauder,who will create a signature fragrance, and use Elizabeth Taylor as a spokesperson, all so Michael can pay his lawyers for another week."

"Okay, so what's next?" Tristan asked.

"Nothing. I played you the best ones." Mollie informed him, hitting the 'eject' button on his stereo. While she was putting it back in the case, she noticed something peeking out of a drawer. Mollie pulled on the edge of the paper. "What's this?"

"Nothing, just put it back." Tristan shot out of bed quickly. Unfortunately, he was not quick enough. Mollie's eyes widened as she realized what the papers were.

"Tristan, why didn't you tell me that you were transferring to Yale?" Mollie asked, a little hurt that she was left out of the loop. Tristan was one of her best friends, why wouldn't he talk to her about something like this?

"Because I've been trying to find a way out of it for the last six months." Tristan sighed. "Father wants me to transfer, so I can fulfill that stupid legacy crap. He doesn't care that I'm happy at Princeton. All he cares about is that fact that I'll be thefifth generation of Dugreymento graduate from Yale."

"Why don't you say no?" Mollie asked, before realizing that she had just asked the stupidest question in the history of asking stupidquestions.

"No one says no to Gregory Dugrey." Tristan mocked, deepening his voice to sound like his father. "Look at Military School. I don't have a choice. He still owns my ass, and he takes every opportunity to remind me of that."

Gregory Dugrey was the epitome of a dictator. He ruled over his family with an iron fist, always controlling every aspect of each member's lives, especially Tristan's. His mother wielded a modicum of control, but she didn't use it very often, and when she did, it wasn't for anything worthy.

Clara Dugrey was weak. The opposite of the fiercely independent and outspoken Lulu. She didn't act like any member of her family. Some might call her an individual, if it meant that she acted the part of the perfect society wife, ignoring all of the lessons and examples shown to her by the women in her family.

Tristan didn't really get along with either of his parents. They didn't understand him, and had never really made any sort of effort to try. When the going got tough three years ago, they had abandoned him when he needed them the most, opting to send him to Military School to be someone else's problem.

That's all he was to them anyway. A problem. He never did anything right in their eyes. When he was second in his class, preceded only by Paris Gellar, he had disappointed them by not being first. His father also didn't care for the fact that he was 'beaten by a girl.'

Maybe that was the reason that Tristan had decided to break the family legacy, choosing to attend Princeton, rather than Yale, the school of his forefathers. At Princeton, he was his own person. There was no prestige that went with the name Dugrey, at least past the standard elite family prestige that you would be able to find among most Ivy League schools. He wasn't judged for being the son of Gregory Dugrey and Clara Carrington. No one knew who they were.

But at Yale, everyone would know who he was before he introduced himself. Especially if he took over his father's old position, which was what the old man wanted. Gregory wanted Tristan to take the reigns and lead the next generation of the best of the best into the future.

But did Tristan want that?

No.

Did that matter?

No.

"Well, look on the bright side." Mollie put her arm around Tristan's shoulder. "At least you'll have me, and Rory's gonna be there too. It won't be that bad."

"If you say so, Molls." Tristan grumbled, though his future at Yale didn't seem as bleak as before. Maybe it wouldn't be as bad, and he would get to spend more time with Rory, after all.

But maybe it would be. Maybe it would be the nightmare he had been trying, with no avail, to escape for six months. What would he do then?

**-&-;**

Finally, Rory escaped the clutches of her grandmother. She had been nabbed right after breakfast, and held hostage for hours on end, while her grandmother showed off her 'Yale girl' to some of her old friends.

Some of those women were kind of scary. They had sharp, pointy nails that resembled talons, their eyes were cold, and they made Rory feel more than a little uncomfortable.

Finally, tea was over, and Rory was free. Why had she been singled out, and not Mollie or Tristan? Mollie was going to Yale next semester, Rory wasn't the only Yalie in the house.

Rory decided that since she had nothing to do, and no one to hang out with, as both Tristan and Mollie seemed extremely talented at hiding, that she would do some exploring. She hadn't had much of an opportunity to do so, as she had been spending all of her time with the two of them, and they weren't very excited about taking another tour of a house they had already spent a lot of time in.

Every room that Rory would peek into was a new discovery. There was an honest to goodness ballroom on the second floor in the East wing, and the music room held a gleaming grand piano, along with several other instruments, like a beautiful dark cello, and a shining flute, both of which she knew belonged to Mollie, as the pictures on the wall in front of her held photos of Mollie playing both, as well as one of Tristan sitting at a piano, his face scrunched up in concentration. She did notice however, that he looked quite dashing in his tuxedo and white tie.

In the next room that she explored, Rory felt like she had died and gone to heaven. The library was floor to ceiling with books, and was twice the size of the one at school that she frequented most often. It was amazing.

Rory ran her fingers lightly over the leather bound novels. This had to be one of those perfect moments in life. All of those books, and they were all available to her. She didn't have to wait to read them, like she had with some of the volumes she had desired at school. Life couldn't possibly get better than this.

"See anything you like, Mary?"

Rory spun around, startled to hear Tristan's voice behind her. He was sitting comfortably in a club chair by the long wall of windows, a book in his lap. She couldn't help but notice how good he looked in glasses. Not just anyone could pull off the four eyed look. She couldn't. Her mother couldn't, which was why she had opted for contacts. But Tristan… wow.

"The question is more, see anything you don't like." Rory smiled. "I didn't see you there."

"I know." Tristan smirked. "You were too busy ogling the books to notice the 'hot guy' in the corner."

"Am I ever going to live that down?" Rory asked. Tristan had been teasing her mercilessly about the fact that she had called him 'hot.' She was beginning to think that she would never hear the end of it.

"I'd say… no."

"Whatcha reading?" Rory asked, walking over to him. He held up the cover. 'Five People You Meet in Heaven.' That's written by the 'Tuesdays with Morrie' guy, right?"

"Mitch Albom."

"Yeah, that's it. How is it?"

"It's a great book. I've read it before."

"Oh."

"You should definitely read it too."

"I'll put it on the list."

"Great, so by the time that you read it, I'll be too old to talk about it."

"That's a little extreme."

"How many books are on the list?" Tristan asked, looking at her pointedly.

"Point taken."

"Good."

"I'll move it up a little closer to the top." Rory relented, mentally trying to squeeze it in between her re read of 'Great Expectations' and 'Peyton Place,' because Lorelai had decided that Rory needed to read something a little dirty.

"How about to the very top?"

"And why would I do that?"

"So you can talk about it with me."

"We could always talk about it later."

"Could we?" Tristan asked, his eyebrow raised a little. He was surprised that she was making plans for the future, especially a future that included him in some form.

"Of course." Rory looked at him like he had sprouted another head. "We're friends, aren't we?"

"Are we friends?" He pondered out loud.

"What, you don't want to be?"

"Honestly? Not really."

"What?" Rory was startled by his question.

"I don't want to be your friend, Rory."

"Why not?" She asked him, a feeling of panic and hurt filling her. In such a short period of time, he had become a big part of her world. A lot bigger than she had imagined, and a lot bigger than she was willing to admit.

"Don't you ever want more?"

"But, I thought… we were supposed to be trying to be friends, Tristan." Rory looked into his eyes, and saw that the look that had resided in them before that second kiss by the piano as filling them now. Rory was suddenly filled with both a feeling of intense desire for him to kiss her again, and the urge to flee, to escape the room that had suddenly closed in on her, despite its enormous capacity.

"Is that what you really want, Rory?" Tristan asked her, staring back at her, willing her to answer him.

"I… I…" She wasn't ready to answer him. Rory was feeling confused, as the conflicting emotions inside of her fought for dominance.

"Because that's not what I want." He said, looking away from her. She felt something inside of her sadden as he broke their connection. "But it's your call. Think about it."

She nodded, it was all she could do. He left her alone, leaving the room. Rory curled up in the chair he vacated seconds before. Alone with her thoughts, she felt even more confused then she did before.

What was she going to do?

**-&-;**

_**Do you remember the first kiss?**_

_**Stars shooting across the sky**_

_**To come to such a place as this**_

_**You never left my mind**_

Rory had been heading back to her room when she heard the familiar tune by PJ Harvey. She turned around, and walked back down the hall to Mollie's bedroom, and stuck her head in.

Mollie was sprawled on her bed, reading a book when she heard the knock. "Hey."

"Hey."

"What brings you to this neck of the woods?" Mollie smiled, pushing the pause button, as Rory entered the room.

"I heard PJ Harvey, and I couldn't resist." Rory answered, sitting on the bed across from Mollie. "She's one of my favorites."

"She is pretty great."

"Are you listening to her cd?"

"Nope. I was bored after you and Tristan abandoned me last night, so I made a cd to pass the time." Mollie grinned. "I put together quite an amazing compellation, let me tell you."

"Or, you could just play the cd, you know." Rory joked, leaning back against one of the posts at the end of the bed.

"No problem." Mollie pressed the play button once again, glad that her plan was working. Tristan had once told her that Rory had turned him down for a PJ Harvey concert, even though she loved her. In Mollie's eyes, that made her perfect for Tristan. He didn't need someone who would follow him blindly, he needed someone who wouldn't let him get away with his usual crap.

_**I look into your eyes**_

_**And I feel it coming through**_

_**And I can't help but want you**_

_**More than I want to**_

"Okay, how can you possibly go from PJ Harvey to American Idol?" Rory asked, as the song played on. "I don't get it."

"Hey, that show is awesome. Simon Cowell is so mean, it's great." Mollie defended the show. "I love watching the first shows, when you see all of the people who only think that they can sing."

"My mom likes that too."

"Wise woman."

"Don't tell her that, we'll never hear the end of it." Rory stated. "Can you play something else? My ears are starting to bleed."

"Not a Kelly Clarkson fan, I see. Okay, we can fix that."

_**I wanna hold you close, I wanna push you away**_

_**I wanna make you go, I wanna make you stay**_

_**Should I say it, should I tell you how I feel**_

_**Oh, I want you to know**_

_**But then again I don't**_

_**It's so complicated**_

"You have the most eclectic taste in music." Rory informed Mollie, as the strains of the country song faded from the room.

"Tristan thinks so too."

"Yeah." Rory closed her eyes, remembering the conversation she had just had with him. The words to this song described the way she felt so well. She wanted him, but then, she didn't want things to change. What if she wasn't ready? What if they weren't right for each other? What would happen it they were to take it past the point of no return? Would they end up hating each other?

It really was so complicated.

"He likes you, you know."

"What?"

"Tristan. He likes you."

"So I've gathered." Rory sighed. She didn't know if it was the best idea in the world for her to be talking about this with Tristan's cousin. They were really close, and even though she and Mollie were starting to build a really strong friendship, Rory knew that when the chips were down, Mollie would take Tristan's side, no matter what.

"What do you think about that?"

"I don't know what to think."

"He's a good guy."

"I know."

"He wouldn't hurt you. At least, not intentionally."

"I know that, too."

"So what's the problem?" Mollie asked, curious as to why she wouldn't put herself out there.

"I've made so many mistakes when it comes to guys. Especially that last one."

_**Cuz I can't make you love me if you don't**_

_**You can't make your heart feel something it won't**_

A tear trickled down Rory's cheek as the next song came on. Was that what she had done with Dean? Had she tried to force herself to love him? Had she tried to make her heart feel something it wasn't capable of feeling?

"Well, if you need to talk, I'm here." Mollie offered her a tissue from the box beside a framed photograph on her bedside table. Rory looked at it a little closer. _Isabelle and Octavia,May 15, 1985,_ the inscription in the silver frame read.

"Who are Isabelle and Octavia?" Rory asked, pointing at the picture.

Mollie glanced back, picking up the frame from the table. "That's me and my mom. It was taken the day I was born."

"How do you get Mollie from Isabelle or Octavia?" Rory wondered.

"My full name is Octavia Mollina Calloway." Mollie told her, tracing the outline of her mother's face. "She named me after her godmother."

"Oh." Rory couldn't think of anything else to say. "You look like her."

"Thanks." Mollie said absently, her eyes filling with tears. "I miss her."

"So she's…" Rory trailed off, a little uncomfortable as to the turn that the conversation had taken. If given the chance, she probably would have taken the opportunity to go back to talking about Tristan. Now, she was prying in on a subject she didn't think she was equipped to handle.

"Dead? Yeah. She was diagnosed with cancer when I was ten. She died a year later." Mollie put the photo back, and picked up the remote again. "Okay, enough tears. We need some music."

_**Let me surround you**_

_**My sea to your shore**_

_**Let me be the calm you seek**_

"Sarah McLachlan, nice." Rory smiled, listening to the words. She wanted that. The feeling that Sarah was singing about. Rory didn't just want to feel wanted, but she also wanted to feel needed. Dean had never really needed her, and she had never needed him. She had never been up late at night, thinking about the way he made her feel. She had thought about him, sure, but never in the way that she should have, not if she ever truly loved him as much as she said that she did.

"I love her stuff. Have you heard her new cd? It's amazing."

"I know, I've had 'Stupid' on repeat for the last month."

"I love that song."

"I feel like it was written for me."

"I think that we've all felt like that at one point or another." Mollie smiled. "If you want to talk about it, I'm here, and despite what Tristan might have told you, I'm actually a pretty good listener."

"Thanks." Rory smiled back at her. "It's just, I don't want to make another mistake. I don't want to hurt anyone else."

"You do know that people make mistakes, right?" Mollie wondered what Rory could have possibly done that was so bad. She seemed like the kind of person who couldn't hurt a fly, let alone another person. "It's generally how we learn."

"There you go again, sounding like my mother."

"And I already told you, she's a wise woman."

"Why do relationships have to be so hard?"

"I don't know."

"I'm all jumbled."

"Maybe I can help you unjumble yourself."

"Tristan told me that he has feelings for me."

_Go Tristan_. Mollie thought. "Uh huh."

"And he's leaving it up to me to decide whether or not I want to be with him."

"Uh huh."

"But I don't know if I can."

"Why not?"

"I don't know if it's a good idea."

"Why wouldn't it be a good idea? You obviously like him."

"I do."

"So what exactly is the problem?" Mollie asked. "What's standing in the way of something that you both want?"

"What if we just end up hurting each other?"

"What if you don't?"

"What if it's not right between us?"

"What if it is?"

"What if we can't go back?"

"What if you don't want to?"

"You know Mollie, you really are annoying to play the 'what if' game with." Rory smiled.

"I've heard that before."

"Imagine that?"

"Funny."

"Well I try." Mollie joked. "But seriously, you have to decide whether or not you want to be with him. No one else can decide whether or not it's worth the risk."

"I know."

"And you're probably going to have to decide soon. Tristan doesn't have very much patience. Especially when it comes to matters of the heart."

"So I've gathered."

"Okay, how about one more song, and then we go down and see about dinner?" Mollie suggested. "I don't know about you, but I'm starved."

"You read my mind." Rory smiled, chuckling at how perfect the song was for that moment in time. She was beginning to think that Mollie's cd was a little less innocent than she had let on.

_**And I can't really tell you what I'm gonna do**_

**____****There are so many thoughts in my head**

_**There are two roads to walk down and one road to choose**_

_**So I'm thinking over the things that you've said**_

It seemed that Rory had some thinking to do.

But which road would she choose?

**

* * *

**

**The Trory Soundtrack **

(As compiled by Mollie Calloway)

**Tristan**

Crazy For This Girl- Evan and Jaron- Evan and Jaron

Come On- Ben Jelen- Come On

Delicate- Damien Rice- O

If Tomorrow Never Comes- Ronan Keating- Destination

Oh My Love- John Lennon- Our Little Corner of the World (GG soundtrack!)

**Rory**

One Line- PJ Harvey- Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea

Anytime- Kelly Clarkson- Thankful

Complicated- Carolyn Dawn Johnson- Room With a View

I Can't Make You Love Me- Bonnie Raitt- Luck of the Draw

I Love You- Sarah McLachlan- Surfacing

Dana Glover- Thinking Over- Testimony

* * *

Please Review! 

Make my season bright

Make my troubles out of sight!


	7. Something Parental This Way Comes

**An Author's Pre Nosh Ramblings**- Hello all! I'm back again, it hasn't been too long, has it? Hehe. Another offering of this story, I hope that everyone is enjoying this story, and how it is developing!

A special thank you to Sara, (Shouhei) my wonderful Beta Buddy. Her words of encouragement and exceptional eye for detail continue to make my chapters even better than they were before her! Go and read her new story 'Thigh Highs', it's absolutely amazing.

I'm not sure how much I'll be writing for a while. A lot of family stuff happening all at once, none of it good, plus finals and I work retail. So, if you can imagine, I won't have a lot of time.

But enough of this stuff, that's what the blog is for!

* * *

Chapter Seven- Something Parental This Way Comes 

"I can't believe you told her!"

Tristan gave her a look before lining up his shot. "It wasn't like I planned it, Mollie. It just kind of… happened."

"Still… you told her." Mollie smirked. Her little soundtrack had definitely done its job. She knew that it would make Tristan or Rory go out on that limb and tell the other how they felt, but honestly, if she had to put money on one of them, Mollie would have picked Rory.

"I swear, it was the Lennon. He makes people do crazy things." Tristan explained, cursing under his breath as he missed the red ball he was aiming for. He and Mollie were playing a 'friendly' game of pool. It was nearly one in the morning, and the game was almost over. Tristan just needed to get that red and the eight ball, while Mollie still had at least two other shots to make before she could even think of going in for the kill.

Usually, Mollie was a pool shark. She could easily beat Tristan without even trying. Tristan was no slouch by any means, but Mollie seemed to be especially gifted at the game. So the fact that Tristan was winning pretty easily had him a little worried.

Mollie seemed different. She was still her bubbly, cheerful self, but there was something lurking behind her smile. Something major had happened, and from what Tristan could tell, it wasn't good. The light that shone in her deep green eyes was a little dimmer.

"Why do you think that I picked him?" Mollie informed him, sinking a stripe. "I know the effect that he has on people, especially you."

"Evil."

"I know, we learned from the best."

"Yeah, Gran was a great teacher."

"You know Rory's gonna avoid you, right?" Mollie said suddenly.

"Yeah, I kind of figured." Tristan shrugged. "I guess I'm just going to give her space until she figures everything out."

"That's healthy."

"Yeah. It's just, I've wanted this for so long that I guess I'm willing to wait a little while to see where it goes."

"Yeah, right."

"You don't believe me?"

"Not really, no."

"Well, then I guess I'm full of surprises tonight." Tristan grinned widely as his cue came in contact with the eight ball. "I believe that means that I just won."

"Wow! There's a first time for everything!" Mollie rolled her eyes.

"You say that like it's never happened before." Tristan said. "I've beaten you before."

"The last time you beat me was when I broke my finger in the Water Olympics of 2000." Mollie smiled at the memory. "But at least I won that competition."

"I still say you cheated." Tristan grumbled, remembering the event. "I mean, you kissed two of the judges. That wasn't fair."

"It's not my fault that Sully and Tyler both had crushes on me." Mollie shrugged. "And I'm sure it had nothing to do with anything but their enthusiasm of my cannonball."

"Sure."

"Believe whatever you want to, Tris." Mollie patted his cheek. "I'm going to bed. It's exhausting being me."

"I don't doubt it."

"Shut up."

--&--

Rory peered cautiously into the dining room the next morning. Seeing no sign of Tristan, she took a seat next to Emily, and poured herself some coffee.

"Good morning Rory." Emily greeted her.

"Morning." Rory answered after taking a long swig from her cup. God, that was good coffee. Not as good as Luke's, but a vast improvement from what the 'maid of the week' made at her grandparents house.

"What do you have planned for the day?" Emily asked her. "I'm going to visit a very dear friend, a little later. She and her husband went to Yale as well. You should come with me, it would be a wonderful opportunity to make some connections."

Rory froze. She had absolutely no desire to go to visit yet another 'dear friend' of her grandmother's. They were usually dull, and snobby, and they seemed to be able to tell that she wasn't really one of them, despite her familial background.

"Actually, Mrs. Gilmore, Rory and I are going visiting ourselves." Rory looked up to see Mollie walk into the room and sit down across from her. "I just got a call from a good friend of mine, and I would love to introduce him to Rory."

"That's wonderful." Emily beamed. "I'm sure that Rory would love to meet a friend of yours. It will be good for her to meet more of her peers, and it would probably be nice to get out of the house."

"Great." Mollie smiled, digging in to her French toast. "I figured that we could leave around noon."

"Okay." Rory nodded, grateful to Mollie for saving her from another day of endless gossip with the borderline bluehairs. She mouthed 'thanks' to her as Emily returned her attentions to her breakfast.

Mollie smirked, happy with herself. She wasn't going to let Rory or Tristan off the hook.

Not one bit.

--&--

"So, where are we going?" Rory asked, as she and Mollie got into Mollie's car. She had been instructed to wear something suitable for tennis, but Rory didn't have anything like that, so she had to borrow an outfit from Mollie, who was surprisingly close to Rory's size, despite the few inches of height difference between the two girls.

"My friend Sully is in town." Mollie answered as she started the BMW. "He just got in yesterday, and I haven't seen him in forever."

"Are you sure that you want me to come? I wouldn't want to intrude." Rory said, tugging at the hem of the white skirt. Why were these things so short? How was she supposed to be comfortable enough to traipse around after a tennis ball, when she couldn't even stand in this ensemble without fidgeting?

"Of course. Plus, did you really want to go and visit those old ladies?"

"Not really."

"So you'll come with me and have fun." Mollie grinned. "Sully is great. He's really smart, and has a great sense of humor. Plus, he's pretty easy on the eyes."

Rory raised an eyebrow, and crossed her arms over her chest. The sleeveless polo shirt was a little lower cut, and definitely tighter than what she normally wore, and she was a bit uncomfortable.

"So, tennis?" Rory asked after they had driven in silence for a few minutes.

"Yeah, he's going to be in the tournament too." Mollie informed her, referring to the annual competition that took place near the end of the summer. "We've all been in it for years, and I just want to get some court time in at his house."

"Why?" Rory asked, bewildered. Why would she need to go to someone else's house to practice when she had a perfectly good tennis court at Chateau du Sable.

"Sully has grass courts, like they have at the club." Mollie explained. "We have clay."

"There's a difference?"

"Yeah, a pretty big one. The surface that you play on affects the way that you have to play the game. Where to hit the ball, how hard, angles to your shots, stuff like that."

"Wow."

"You've played tennis before, right?"

"Not really."

"How do you pull that off?" Mollie asked, a little incredulous. "I mean, didn't they teach it to you at that fancy schmancy prep school of yours?"

"Well, yeah, they had a course on it during my junior year, but I got out of it when I fractured my wrist." Rory explained, reliving the relief that she had felt when she had escaped the horrors of gym class for half of a semester.

"Yeah, but you know the basics, right?" Mollie asked, a little hopeful. Her plan might not be as flawless as she initially thought.

"Kinda."

"What do you know?"

"That Andy Roddick looks really good when he's playing." Rory smiled. "My mom gets all hot and bothered whenever he's on the court."

"That's not too hard." Mollie agreed, feeling a little bit of warmth rise in her at the thought of the rising tennis star. "He is a fine specimen of manhood."

"Yeah."

"But what else?"

"What else what?"

"What else do you know about tennis?"

"Not much. Gilmore girls aren't exactly what we'd call 'athletic.'" Rory said. "Is that bad?"

"Nah. Tennis isn't a hard sport to get." Mollie smiled encouragingly. "Basically, you hit the ball back and forth, and the last one to get it over the net wins the point."

"Oh." Rory said. Maybe this wouldn't be that hard of a sport after all. What could be so complicated about hitting a little green ball over the net?

--&--

"So you just came out and told her?"

Tristan rolled his eyes, and returned the serve. "I swear, if one more person asks me that… it's not like I planned it, Graham."

"Still, this is the girl that you've been hung up on since we were in high school." Graham said, moving up the court to volley the ball back to Tristan. "I can't believe that you just came right out and told her. It's not like you, Man."

"I know, but it's not like I thought about it. I mean, she was there, and I was there, plus, Mollie was being devious." Tristan tried to explain, hitting a backhand shot.

"Huh?"

"She played the Lennon card." Tristan said, swearing softly as he missed a well placed hit. "Nice shot."

"Thanks." Graham took a short bow before meeting Tristan on the side of the court for a water break. "So, Mollie used your weakness for the Beatles against you? That's pretty underhanded, even for her."

"Oh, she didn't even use the Beatles, Dude, she went straight for the solo stuff." Tristan told him, cracking open a bottle of ice cold water.

"Man, that's pure evil."

"I know."

"Well, Lulu must be proud that she's coming into her own."

"Yeah. I'm surprised that she hasn't thrown a ball or anything to commemorate the event." Tristan rolled his eyes. "Gran's got enough on her plate, trying to fix Rory's grandparent's relationship. She's been spending all of her free time trying to get Emily to open up, but the woman won't budge, as far as I can tell."

"I think you have enough stuff to worry about, without adding anything from generation 'W.'"

"I know. On top of all the Rory stuff, Mollie's got something going on, and it's big."

That piqued Graham's interest. "What's up with her?"

"I don't know yet, but I'm going to find out." Tristan confided in him. "It's not good, Man, you can see it in her eyes."

"I wouldn't worry too much about it. I mean, Mollie is fully capable of handling her own stuff, plus yours, mine and at least half of the rest of the crew's."

"Yeah, I know. It's just that I hate seeing her like this." Tristan explained, taking his place back on the court, getting ready to serve. "She's the same old Mollie, but something's different… off."

"She'll talk to someone when she's ready to talk to someone." Graham reassured him, returning the serve with a flawless forehand. "Mollie'll do what she wants when she wants, you know that."

"I know. It's that big brother syndrome rearing its ugly head, I guess."

"You're going to have to watch that, you know." Graham nodded, lobbing the ball back over the net. "She'll kill you if you start to bring her social life down when you come to Yale."

"How did you… Mollie." Tristan answered his own question. No one knew about his transfer, except for himself, his parents, and Mollie.

"Did you really think that the girl was going to keep that secret for long?" Graham asked him, hitting the ball into the net.

"When did she tell you?"

"I called her yesterday around one or so, and she spilled." Graham called, taking his place on his side of the court.

"In the morning or afternoon?" Tristan asked, faulting his first serve.

"Afternoon."

"Well, she lasted five hours." Tristan grumbled, landing his second serve. He was going to have to work on that if they wanted to win the Men's doubles competition. He and Graham had come in second in their age group for the last three years. And Dugreys didn't lose very well, especially to-

"Sully!" Tristan returned the ball quickly, but Graham whirled around when he heard someone call his name. "Watch-,"

"-Out." Mollie finished, running over to Graham, who had just been struck in the back of the head by the ball that Tristan had just hit. "Are you okay?"

Graham sat up on the soft grass of the court. "I am now. How've you been, Doc Oc?"

"Ugh, why do you have to be so mean, Sully?" Mollie groaned, crinkling her nose in distaste at his choice of nicknames.

"Hey, I told you years ago, I'm fighting nickname with nickname." Graham explained. "Good hit, Tris." He grinned evilly at his friend, who had crossed the court to see if he was okay. "Now, if only you could channel this power and accuracy into your serve, we'd be set."

"Shut up." Tristan rolled his eyes, offering Graham a hand. "Sorry about that. I didn't think that Bigmouth over here was going to distract you."

"Hey! I don't have a big mouth!" Mollie defended herself. "And if you can't be nice, then maybe we'll just go and visit someone else."

"We?" Graham asked, looking around for another person, but the court, and the area surrounding it was empty.

"She got distracted, when your Mom offered coffee." Mollie explained. "I've never seen anyone with the ability to drink so much coffee before. She already had four cups before we got here."

"Wow." Graham raised an eyebrow. "So, _SHE'S_ here?"

"Yep."

"So, I finally get to meet this amazing girl that has Tristan here all atwitter?"

"Did you just say 'atwitter?'" Mollie giggled. "Tristan, Graham just said 'atwitter.'"

"I heard, Molls." Tristan chuckled. "Dude, we've got to get you a better thesaurus. The one you have… well, I don't even want to know where you learned 'atwitter.'"

"Shut up." Graham rolled his eyes, giving him a friendly push. "Why do you feel the need to pick on me?"

"Because you make it easy!" Mollie grinned. "Oh, there she is. Over here, Rory!"

"I think she can figure it out, Mollie." Graham smirked. "It's not like there are many other groups out here."

"Shut up." Mollie narrowed her eyes playfully. As soon as Rory joined the group, she started to make the introductions. "Graham, this is Rory Gilmore, Rory, this is-,"

"Graham Sullivan." Rory finished for her.

--&--

Rory couldn't believe it. The Sully that Mollie had raved about was none other than Graham Sullivan.

How could Tristan and Mollie be friends with him? He was so… ick.

Maybe they weren't as great as she originally thought, if they hung out with people like that. Rory was a pretty good judge of character, but even she had some slips every once in a while.

The weather had quickly grown too hot to continue playing outside, so the group had decided to go back to Chateau du Sable and go swimming. Rory hadn't said much since being 'introduced' to Graham. She was too busy trying to figure out how she could have become such good friends with people who had friends like that.

"Ror?"

Rory shook herself from her thoughts and turned to Mollie. "Yeah?"

"You've been really quiet."

"I'm just thinking."

"About what?"

"Stuff." Rory answered, looking out the window as they turned back onto Bellevue Avenue. She had been very vague about how she knew Graham, not volunteering too many details. She didn't really want to relive that night, it hadn't been one of her best, after all.

"Want to talk about it?"

"Not really."

"Oh, okay."

They drove into the driveway in silence. Mollie didn't really want to push, and Rory didn't really have much of a desire to share. As they got out of the car, they were met by Graham and Tristan, who had been ahead of them on the way back.

Tristan was dying to grill Graham on how he knew Rory, but it would have to wait until later. He opened the front door, and was met with angry voices coming from a distance.

"Tell me where she is, damn it!"

"What's going on?" Rory asked, looking around. "Who is that?"

A man with sandy blonde hair and a pair of angry green eyes burst out of the parlor, shooting daggers at the group of teens at the end of the hall.

"There you are!"

Mollie stared the man down, anger that rivaled his in her own emerald orbs.

"That would be my father."

* * *

Ooh... what will I think up next?

There's only one way to find out!

I'll give you a hint...

**REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!**


	8. Screaming Infidelities

An Author's Post Rolling Out of Bed Mumblings- Hello all! I'm posting again. Three posts in as many weeks, wow! I must be growing up! Another day, another update, and an angsty one at that! I've never really written anything angsty before, so please, let me know what you think. I'm open to criticism, as long as it is constructive. If you want to tell me that I suck, use the email, please!

To the bestest beta in the land, my Sara, (Shouhei). Once again, she instills the confidence in me to step outside of my comfort zone and venture off in a new direction! She is awesome, as a beta, a friend, and an author! Go and read anything of hers and be completely satisfied, but I'd reccomend 'Thigh Highs', it's pretty steamy, plus, it's a trory!

And to my 100th reviewer, my beautful baby sister, Erin (mangoes2oo5) I love you Zibby, you are awesome for making me a member of the triple digit club!

Yes, all those readers who are wondering who Graham is, yes, you will find out during the 'deschmuckification' process that he goes through. I needed to redeem him a little, for he is going to be making a lot of appearances in the story from now on.

Anyhoo, enough of the chit chat, READ!!!!

* * *

Chapter Eight- Screaming Infidelities 

"So, how's your summer been so far?"

Rory's head snapped in Graham's direction at the sound of his lame question. Why was he talking to her? What could they possibly have to say to each other? He was the last person that she really wanted to speak to, after Dean and Jess, who had also been a part of her horrible last night on campus.

"Peachy keen."

Graham rolled his eyes at her forced reply. "You don't have to get all snippy, you know."

"I think I have every right to be snippy."

"Why?"

"I'm sorry, do you even remember that night?" Rory asked incredulously. It was emblazoned in her memory, shouldn't it be prominent in his, too?

"Honestly, not very well." Graham sighed, taking a seat on one of the plush couches of the sitting room that he had pushed them into almost a half hour ago. "If you recall, my memory and judgement were a little impaired."

"And whose fault is that?" Rory snapped, narrowing her eyes.

"Mine."

"Give the boy a prize." Rory announced to the near empty room, flopping on the couch across from the one that he was sitting on. His leg was bouncing up and down, up and down. It was growing incessant, and annoying. "Could you stop doing that?"

"Doing what?"

"That."

"Again, you are going to have to be a little more specific."

"That! The leg bobby thing that is driving me crazy!" Rory exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air.

"Oh." He replied, stilling his leg.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." He paused a moment, not sure if he should continue to try and talk to her. "So, you're the girl?"

"Huh?"

"The girl."

"Well, I'm _a_ girl, but I'm sure there are others out there too." Rory answered shortly. Why was he bothering?

"Geez, are you always this rude?" Graham asked her, getting a little annoyed at her.

"I'm so sorry. I'm usually much more polite to drunk drivers."

"For the record, I wasn't the drunk driver, Dan was." Graham pointed out to her. "Not that it mattered to the police much."

"You got arrested?" Rory asked, sitting up on the couch.

"Yep, handcuffs, flashing lights, the works."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"What happened?"

"Funny thing, drinking impairs your driving skills." Graham began his story. "I mean, one minute, we're laughing, having a good time, and the next, we're running headlong into a tree."

"Oh my God." Rory breathed.

"Yeah."

"Did anyone…"

"Die? No, we all walked away from it. Well, Joey didn't, he broke his leg." Graham assured her. "I'm just grateful that we didn't hit anyone else."

"That is definitely something to be grateful for."

"Yep."

"So, what happened after?"

"Oh, well, that was a doozy." Graham said. "My parents weren't exactly thrilled with the news that their only son had wrapped his car around a tree while he was intoxicated. Dan got the brunt of the charges, because he was the driver, but my mom and dad made sure that I got punished as well."

"What did you have to do?" Rory asked. This was not exactly what she had expected from him after the time they had spent together. He seemed… normal, like he had when her grandmother had first introduced him to her.

"The first thing that my mother did was hack my license in half." Graham told Rory, a sad look on his face. "It had a really great picture, I was really sorry to see it go."

"That's it?! All that happened was that your mommy took away your license?" Rory exclaimed, her face growing hot with anger as she stood up quickly. "You could have killed someone you know."

"Hey, I do know that!" Graham exclaimed, rising to his feet as well. "I have to go to colleges and high schools for the next two years and explain the perils of drunk driving to other kids. I don't want anyone else to make the same stupid mistake that I made. I mean, we could have killed someone, or ourselves."

"Oh." Rory couldn't think of much more to say after that. He had learned his lesson, she was pretty sure of it. The look in his eyes had been one of shame and regret. Maybe he wasn't as vile as she thought he was. After all, Rory didn't have much to base her opinion of him on only the one night that they had 'hung out,' and even that had been marred by the appearance of Dean and Jess.

Graham had gone over to the window, looking out to the ocean in the distance. "I wish that I could take back what I did, but I can't do that. I guess I thought that I was supposed to let loose, and go crazy. Isn't that what all college students do?"

"I wouldn't know." Rory answered, crossing the room to join him. "I'm not really the 'hang loose and go crazy' type. I didn't really party much last year, or in my four years of high school either, for that matter."

"Me either." Graham admitted. "I was a bookworm in high school. My friends and I didn't really party all that much. But when I came to college, I guess I went a little nuts."

"Drunk driving is pretty insane." Rory agreed.

"I kind of wanted a change. I wanted to be someone new, I suppose."

"I can understand that."

"Funny thing is, I kinda liked the old Graham Sullivan more." Graham said softly. "I'm really trying to be him again."

"That's good." Rory couldn't help but feel like she wasn't equipped to handle this conversation. She barely knew Graham, and yet, here she was, standing there as he confided in her. Rory needed to change the subject.

"You know, when Mollie told me that we were going to visit her friend Sully, you were the last person that I thought it would be."

"Oh, God, do I hate that nickname." Graham snorted. "She came up with it when we were kids, and she just won't let it drop."

"Why does she call you that, anyway?" Rory asked, intrigued.

"We were watching TV one day, and she decided to inflict it on me."

"What, was she a Dr. Quinn fan or something?"

"No, actually we were watching Gummi Bears. You know, that old cartoon with the bears that 'bounced from here and there and everywhere?' Well, she decided that I should be Sully, like one of the characters."

"But there wasn't a Sully." Rory said, remembering the cartoon well. Lorelai had loved it, as anything with a catchy musical number and hyper, bouncing cartoon animals was okay with her.

"Yeah. It took her a while to realize that it was Sunni, but by then, she was bored with finding a nickname, and decided to keep it." Graham rolled his eyes. "The only thing that keeps her from using it all the time is because she knows that whenever she does, I call her Doc Ock."

"Why?" Rory asked, warming back up to Mollie and Tristan now that she had figured out that Graham might not be as bad a guy as she had thought.

"You know how her first name is Octavia?" Graham asked, continuing when Rory nodded. "Well, she hates it. So I started calling her Doc Ock, like that villain from the Spiderman comics."

"Nice move." Rory complimented, starting to laugh at the absurdity of both nicknames.

"Thanks." Graham said appreciatively, but looked at her strangely as she started to laugh uncontrollably. "What?"

"She named you after a girl cartoon character." Rory choked out, as her laughter took over.

**--&--**

"Mollie, what's going on?"

Tristan watched as his cousin paced from one end of the room to the other, muttering under her breath. She turned her head slightly, glancing in his direction for a moment before retuning to her previous activity.

They had been in the conservatory for a long time now, and she still wouldn't talk to him. When Tristan and Lulu had finally been able to break apart the father and daughter from their screaming match, Lulu had pushed Stephen Calloway into the parlor he had been in before, and pointed down the hall to the room that Tristan had forced Mollie in to cool off.

"Molls…" Tristan tried again.

"What, Tristan?" Mollie finally broke the silence. "What do you want me to say?"

"I want you to tell me what's going on!"

"I don't want to talk about it!" Mollie yelled.

"You might not want to, but you have to Molls." Tristan coaxed, trying to help her to lift the burden of her secrets. "It's killing you to keep this bottled up, I can see it in your eyes."

"I hate him." She replied in a small voice.

Tristan thought that maybe he hadn't heard right. Mollie had the kind of relationship with her father that he envied. While he might have both parents living, she had a father who loved her more than life itself, and she had a mother once upon a time who felt the same way.

"Your dad?"

"Yeah, that schmuck."

"Why is he so angry?"

"I got him disinherited." Mollie answered, very matter of fact.

"What?" Tristan was shocked. "Why? How?"

"It wasn't that hard, actually." Mollie said, still walking back and forth. "One call to Grandfather Calloway, and BAM! The gravy train is gone."

"But why would you do that to him?"

"Because, I hate him."

"But you and your dad have a great relationship."

"That was before I found out what he did!" Mollie exclaimed, finally coming to a halt.

"What did he do?" Tristan asked. "What did he do to deserve that?"

"He killed my mother!"

**--&--**

"So, you've known Tristan and Mollie for a long time, huh?" Rory asked Graham after they had returned to the sofas. Mollie was right, he was pretty funny. Graham had a sharp wit, but had often left himself open for mocking as the conversation went on.

"Yeah, we've all been buddies for like, forever." Graham smiled as memories of their youth filled his mind. "My mom and Mollie's mom were best friends, and so naturally, we hung out a lot."

"And Tristan?"

"Well, Mollie's mom, Isabelle, she was always 'kidnapping' Tristan when we were younger. His parents weren't what you would call, emotionally available."

"Oh."

"But Isabelle Calloway was a pretty cool chick." Graham explained. "She was one of those women who are born to be mothers. We all took it pretty hard when she passed away."

"That was about six, seven years ago, right?"

"Yeah, about then." Graham nodded. "The cancer was pretty bad. Isabelle hated doctors, and she didn't go to see one for a long time. Always afraid that they would find something. By the time that Lulu finally dragged her to one, the cancer was pretty far gone."

"That's so sad."

"Yeah, she was kind of a second mother to all of us. Mollie was really bad after she died. She wouldn't talk about it with anyone. She still won't go into detail about it."

"So, is her dad one of those absentee fathers?" Rory asked, getting angry at the thought. Her own father was barely a part of her life, but at least she had Lorelai. Rory couldn't even imagine her life without her mother.

"That's what so weird." Graham furrowed his brow. "Mollie and her dad are really close. I don't think that she's ever had anything bad to say about the guy in her whole life."

"Well, judging by the string of obscenities that were streaming from her lips, I'd say the tide has changed."

**--&--**

"What?"

Tristan was dumbfounded. How in the hell had Uncle Stephen killed his aunt? She died of cancer, how could Mollie possibly believe that he could be responsible for her death?

"You heard me." Mollie said sharply, sinking into the corner of the plush velvet couch. "He killed my mother."

"I did hear you Mollie, I just don't understand." Tristan moved to sit beside her on the other couch. "How could he have killed her?"

"He killed her." Mollie's eyes filled with tears. She had been holding all of this knowledge inside of her since she found out about what her father did. "He killed her."

"Mollie, the cancer killed her." Tristan reminded her softly.

"No, Tristan!" Mollie brushed the moisture from her eyes. "He killed her spirit."

"Huh?"

"Listen up, Tristan." Mollie yelled at him, pulling away. "My bastard of a father killed her just as much as the cancer did."

"How?" Tristan asked, trying to get her to talk to him. "How could he have killed her?"

**--&--**

"I can't imagine what could have happened." Graham said. "I mean, their family was like the model family. Loving father, cookie baking mom, and the precocious, endearing daughter all under the same roof. Isabelle and Stephen really loved each other, you could tell. They had one of those bonds that nothing could break, you know?"

"Yeah, I know."

"I mean, it's been like, seven years, and I don't think that he's dated anyone." Graham smiled. "I mean, they really exemplified that saying, 'Life may end, but love never does.'"

"I've never heard that before." Rory smiled at the sentiment. "It's nice."

"Haven't you ever read 'Five People You Meet in Heaven?'"

"Not yet, but it seems to be creeping up my list." Rory said, mentally putting the book at the top, right behind finishing 'The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.' "It's been getting some rave reviews from other readers."

"Yeah, I read it a while ago, and then gave it to Tristan." Graham turned to Rory. "You should see if he still has it. I don't think that he ever returned it."

"I'll look into it." Rory smirked.

The short silence that had filled the room evaporated quickly as loud voices could be heard from outside the sitting room that they were currently trapped in. Rory wasn't sure whether or not it was safe to venture into the hall to see what trouble was brewing beyond the doors.

"Uh oh." Graham murmured, as Mollie's voice growing louder as she came closer. Tristan was right when he said that she had something major going on. He didn't understand what could have happened to the perfect father daughter duo.

It was like something had sent their relationship into a tailspin. Suddenly, the unthinkable was happening. If Mollie and her father's unbreakable bond could be shattered like this, what did that say for the precarious one that he shared with his own father?

"Octavia Mollina Calloway!" The slightly muffled voice came through the thick mahogany doors, filling both occupants with a feeling of dread.

"I think that we'd better get out there." Graham said quietly, hurrying toward the door. If her father was using her full name, nothing good could possibly come from the situation. He had seen the angry daggers Mollie had been silently throwing in her father's direction in the hall earlier. He had also seen the smoke practically billowing from his ears when he confronting her.

This wasn't going to be good. He thought, yanking open the door to see the two standing in the middle of the hall, facing each other, preparing for battle.

Nope, not good at all.

--&--

"You think I'm crazy, don't you?" Mollie stood up, backing away from Tristan. "You think I'm losing my mind."

"No, Molls. Come on, talk to me." Tristan pleaded with her. He knew that she had to get this out before she imploded. Mollie was great at prying into other people's hearts and minds, but very rarely did she actually let anyone into hers.

"NO! I don't want to talk anymore." Mollie screamed, stamping her foot in anger and frustration. "I don't want to sit here with you, not when you think that I've taken a flying leap off the sanity bridge."

"Molls…" Tristan really didn't know what to do. This situation was rapidly spiraling of his control, and he didn't have the slightest idea how to reign it back in.

"I can't do this." Mollie said, turning around, heading for the door. "I can't do this."

"Mollie!" Tristan called, following her out the door. She was quick, and Tristan practically had to run to catch up to her. "Mollie, come on!"

"No, Tristan, No!" Mollie yelled back at him, walking down the hall. "I can't talk to you, not now."

"Octavia Mollina Calloway!" Stephen Calloway bellowed, joining them in the hallway. In fact, everyone seemed to have convened in the front hall, waiting to see what would happen next.

"Stephen Thatcher Calloway!" Mollie rolled her eyes at the absurdity that he thought that he had any power over her now. Not now.

"What in the hell is your problem, little girl?" His eyes were bitingly cold, contrasting violently with the fiery fury in his voice.

"You!" Mollie stood straight, unwavering under the angry words bearing down on her at that moment in time. "You are my problem!"

"What did I ever do to you?" Stephen asked his daughter, confusion now worming its way through his hard gaze. "What did I ever do, besides feed you, clothe you, and love you for the past seventeen years?"

"It's not what you did to me, Daddy Dearest. It's what you did to Mom."

Confusion was now even more evident in his expression. "I never did anything to your mother. I loved her with all my heart."

"Oh, yeah. I forgot. She was your 'soul mate.' Your 'perfect match.'" Mollie rolled her eyes. "She was the one and only love of your life."

"Don't you dare mock what I had with your mother!" Stephen yelled at her, getting even closer to his daughter than he already was. "I loved her then, and I loved her still. I will love her until the day that I die, and even after that."

"Then please, explain it to me." Mollie requested, narrowing her eyes. "Explain to me how you can claim to love her so much, when you were cheating on her for years!"

The room went silent. No one had ever expected for Mollie to say anything like that, not in a million years. Stephen and Isabelle Calloway had the perfect marriage. They loved each other, they were devoted to each other. He would never have an affair.

Would he?

"I never-," Stephen sputtered, taking several steps back. "I didn't-,"

"Did you know she knew?" Mollie asked quietly. "Because she did, Dad. She knew all about it."

"How could she?" He asked, closing his eyes.

"She figured it out."

"But…"

"I found her old diaries last winter during Christmas break." Mollie told him. "They started around her junior year in high school, and went to the end. It wasn't until two months ago that I got to the last one. She found out by accident a few weeks before she died."

"But…"

"At first, when I started to read about it, I thought that it was completely crazy. I mean, she thought it was too, and I guess that it just seemed really irrational, like she was going delusional or something. But I thought that I would prove her wrong, and that would be the end of it. I looked for all the little things that she found, all the things that led her to this unbelievable conclusion."

"She left a pretty good trail to follow up on. I mean, all of your old files were stored in the main database of your computer. So I had a friend help me hack into it, and poof! All the details were right there in front of me, clear as day."

"But…"

"All the times that you couldn't be there with her, all those moments that you missed out on, I know where you were now. I mean, you were even with that woman when she…" Mollie couldn't take it anymore. Her vision was blurred by the tears that had been threatening to fall for months.

"Mollie, Angel… I'm so sor-," Stephen moved to her, attempting to soothe her. His arms were around her when she pushed him away violently.

"No! No, Dad, 'sorry' isn't going to make this better!" Mollie yelled at him, backing away from the group. "Sorry isn't going to bring her back!"

"I never meant for this to happen, Angel, please, just listen to me!" He pleaded with his daughter, begging for her to understand, to forgive him.

"I always wondered why she fought so hard for so long, and then to just give up." Mollie backed into the table in the middle of the room, knocking the vase of roses onto the floor. The crystal shattered the instant it came in contact with the marble floors, sending water everywhere.

"You killed her." Mollie pointed a finger at her father. "If you hadn't done what you did, none of this would have happened!"

"Mollie, Baby…" He pleaded again, advancing on her once again.

"Stop it!" Mollie screamed at him, backing away, withdrawing from the whole group. "I'm not listening to you!"

"Please!" Stephen reached for her, and felt the searing pain stab his heart as she recoiled when his fingers touched the skin of her arm.

"No…" Mollie looked into his eyes. "I hate you, Dad. I hate everything about you. You betrayed my mother all those years ago, and lived a lie for just as long. I hate you."

She turned and ran from the room, leaving a silent group and a broken man to pick up the shattered pieces that she had left behind.

* * *

What are you waiting for? 

Review!

I'llbe nice!

I might update sooner!

Please?


	9. Shattered Glass

**Author's Post Dinner Ramblings**- Hi everyone! It's me, and this is the second update in a week. I know, I know, it's not the sporadic updates that you have all come to hopefully love, but I hope that you'll all enjoy reading this next offering of 'The Last.' I wouldn't get used to the frequent updates though. I had some angst building up inside of me, and I figured that this would be the healthiest way to release it. I have to get into a fluffy place to write the next one, so hopefully, the wind will change, and I'll get a miracle or something.

Thanks go out to my wonderful beta extraordinaire, Sara, (Shouhei) I don't know how she keeps doing it, but she catches all the little things that I don't get, and puts up with my annoying questions and frequent changes of the same chapter. I'm still not sure how I haven't annoyed her to within an inch of her sanity yet, but I'm grateful that she always comes back for more!

Oh, and I had a reviewer point out a mistake a few chapters ago. soccerchica08, thanks for the info, I took care of it, so the inky nit pick is no more!

Enough of my yammering, on with the show!

* * *

Chapter Nine- Shattered Glass

Mollie didn't stop running.

She couldn't. The thoughts in her head were still screaming, trying to get out. The questions, the need for answers that didn't exist, were all pounding against her skull in a jumbled mass of confusion.

_How long had it been going on?_

_Was this the first time?_

_Were there other women?_

_Why had he done it?_

_Was her mother not enough for him?_

_Did she do something wrong?_

_Did she not love him enough?_

_If she hadn't found out, would her mother still be alive?_

Mollie collapsed onto the soft, green earth just before the beach. As her knees hit the ground, a sob tore its way from her throat. So many questions, but would she ever have any real answers?

"Oh, I'm sorry, Dear." Mollie looked up, and saw Emily Gilmore sitting a few yards away, her feet invisible in the sand. "I didn't know that this was your spot too."

"Huh?"

"This is where I always like to go when the world gets a little too crowded with people who just don't get it." Emily smiled wryly.

"Oh."

"Would you like to be alone?" Emily asked politely, standing up and dusting the sand off her dress.

"It doesn't matter." Mollie said quietly, curling up into a ball. "I'm alone all the time now."

"That's impossible." Emily informed her, sitting down next to Mollie. "No one is ever alone, especially not you."

"But it's true!" Mollie cried out, more tears flooding from her eyes. "I lost my mother, and now, I've lost my father too!"

"How can that be, when he's right inside the house?" Emily asked, confused. She hadn't witnessed the events that had transpired only moments ago. She had been outside, hiding from her own problems and wallowing in her own pain.

"He's not my father anymore." Mollie said sharply. "My father would never have betrayed my mother like that. I don't know that man in there, but he's not my father."

"What happened?" Emily asked, understanding the way that the girl was feeling. Betrayal by a loved one was never easy, no matter how old you were.

"He had an affair, years ago." A tear rolled down Mollie's cheek, and she continued on. "She was trying to keep from dying, and he was sleeping with some chippy from the office."

Emily was shocked. She had known Stephen and Isabelle Calloway very well. She had watched Isabelle grow up and get married. She had seen the love that the couple had shared, how was it possible that something so impossible could occur?

"I mean, he was never there that last year. It was like he disappeared." Mollie looked out at the ocean, the waves lapping against the shoreline. "I remember her, she was always so tough, even though everyone thought she was fighting a losing battle, she still put on a brave face, and never gave up. Mom didn't want to leave us, and she fought so hard for a long time."

"Then, all of a sudden, it was like nothing mattered anymore. Mom refused to go for any more chemotherapy, it was like she just gave up. Even at eleven, I knew that something happened, something horrible that broke her unwavering spirit. I watched my mother die, and he wasn't even there. He was never there."

"And I always wondered, what happened? Why did she just let it beat her?" Mollie shut her eyes, trying to force the tears not to fall. "And then, two months ago, I got my answer. He was unfaithful, and she knew about it."

Emily rubbed the girls back soothingly, trying not to distract her from telling her story. "When I found those diaries, it was like I got part of her back. I read all about her first kiss, her graduation, when she and Cassie Sullivan backpacked through Europe, when she met my dad, her wedding. I got to live all of those moments through her eyes, and it was like she was sitting next to me, and telling me all of those stories."

"That is, until I got to the end. She kept a diary from her seventeenth birthday to the day before she died, did you know that? Every single event that happened to her in her life from that day to the end, every emotion that she felt, every fear that she had, every wish she made, every thought she had, no matter how irrational or goofy, they were all documented in those books."

"She found out about my father's affair on accident. Mom called his room when he was in Chicago for a 'business trip.' And a woman answered the phone. She hung up, and had the concierge put her through, since she obviously had the wrong number, and that woman picked up the phone again. That's when she started to do some digging, you know, going through the credit card bills, his business schedules, hotel receipts, and she found out that it had been going on for a while."

"At first, she didn't seem to want to believe it, but the truth was undeniable. And it killed her. She said in one of the last entries that she didn't want to live in a world where the love of her life didn't love her. And then, she just gave up."

"And when I read that, I couldn't believe it. I mean, she must have made a mistake. I couldn't believe that my father, the man who had told me all my life that my mother was irreplaceable, because you don't find love like that everyday. He told me all about how much he loved her, how their love would last until the end of forever, and even after that, but it was all a lie. If he loved her like he said that he did, he would have never been able to throw it all away on some cheap whore."

"I looked into all the clues that she left behind. A friend of mine hacked into his computer, and there was all the proof, right there, clear as day. My dad keeps excellent records. It must have been fate that I found out now, or else they would have gotten rid of all the evidence after seven years, when they delete and shred all the old files."

"But when I saw the records, all confirming what Mom believed, it was like I lost her all over again, but for a new reason. My dad killed her."

"They say that cancer patients that have loving families, something, or someone to live for make mind bending recoveries. What would have happened if he hadn't been unfaithful? Would she still be alive? Would I have had to spend seven years without her?"

"Oh, Dear." Emily pulled Mollie closer as new tears fell from her eyes. "I know how you feel. Betrayal is never easy to cope with, no matter how old you are."

"Who betrayed you?" Mollie asked, her prying nature coming into play. Even with all of her emotions running high, she couldn't resist getting the dirt that Lulu had been trying to obtain for weeks.

"My husband."

--&--

Everything in the house was still silent. Even though they had all left the hall, where all the spectators had seemed to be glued to the spots they stood on, their minds were replaying the events that had just taken place.

Mollie had left them all to pick up the shattered pieces that she had left behind.

Her father had gone, it was pretty obvious from Lulu's demeanor that he was no longer welcome in her home.

The shards of glass were still lying on the floor. A maid had attempted to clean up the mess, but cut her hand in the process.

It had been a beautiful vase. The crystal sparkled brightly as the light had danced in the shapes cut into the base, handcrafted in Switzerland in the early eighteenth century.

So stunning, and now, it was a broken mess on the floor.

Much like the father daughter relationship that had shattered it into a million pieces.

--&--

Rory was stunned.

She had just heard about the great love between Stephen and Isabelle Calloway, how it had conquered over everything, even death. Now, that same love story was nothing but a fairy tale told to a little girl as a bedtime story.

Was there ever any truth to it?

Or was it all just a lie?

Was this what the effects of an affair did to someone? Did it tear up their insides, bubbling over in a torrent of angry words and hateful phrases when the pain of betrayal reached its boiling point?

_Lindsay._

In all the time since that fateful night she had lost her innocence, Rory had thought about herself. What the affair had done to her, what it had done to her relationship with her mother, what it had done to Dean, even. But never Lindsay.

Why not Lindsay?

She was the wife, the 'Isabelle' in the mess. The innocent bystander, who did nothing but love her husband, trusting in his love and fidelity, as Mollie's mother had done.

Did she know?

Did she sense it?

If she ever found out about that night, would she react the way that Mollie had? Would she hate Dean, would she blame him?

Or would she blame Rory?

Rory was to blame too. It wasn't all Dean's fault. She could have said no. She could have told him to leave.

But she hadn't.

Why didn't she tell him to go? Why hadn't she reminded him of the wife that he had waiting for him at home?

Why hadn't he remembered? Why had he even come looking for her in the first place?

Lorelai and Lane had been keeping her up to date on the gossip and goings on of Stars Hollow. Neither had mentioned a break up between Lindsay and Dean.

Lorelai might have chosen not to inform her, thinking maybe it would be too painful for her to know. But Lane would have told her. After all, she knew nothing of what had transpired between Rory and Dean.

And a divorce was big news.

Someone would have told her.

So, Dean had obviously gone back to his life pre-adultery. He had slipped back into the role of the loving husband, the one who would never dream of cheating on his wife.

He had forgotten about their one night of passion.

But the question was, could she do the same?

--&--

"What do you mean?" Mollie asked, turning to Emily. "Did he…"

"Have an affair?" Emily finished for her. "I don't know. But something must have been going on, because he has been having secret lunches with Pennilyn Lott for years. Who knows what else he has chosen to keep from me?"

"I'm sorry."

"I am too." Emily sighed, looking down at the green grass beneath her still bare feet. "I don't have any proof, but if he didn't tell me about this, what else didn't he tell me about? Were there other women? And if so, how many? Less that ten? More than twenty? When one lie is uncovered, it brings a whole lot more to the mind of the person who was lied to."

"Yeah, you start to question every single thing that they ever told you." Mollie agreed, feeling her pain.

"And then, the way that he treated Jason, his business partner." Emily's lip quivered, but she held her tears hidden way. "He just tossed him aside, not caring in the least what happened to him."

"Wow."

"If he could treat his partner like that, what was stopping him from shoving me out of the picture? What was stopping him from replacing me with Pennliyn Lott, the way his mother had begged him to all those years ago?"

"She did that?" Mollie's eyes widened. Emily Gilmore was a great lady. Her grandmother wouldn't be friends with just anyone, and the stories that Lulu had told her about their escapades in college had painted a picture of a woman who was everything that a man could want.

"Oh yes, that old bat never thought I was good enough to be a member of her family." Emily said, a sharp edge in her voice. "When my daughter Lorelai and I were going through some of her personal effects after she died, we found a copy of the letter."

"_You know, it's so weird. I know so little about Gran. I mean, like, what was her maiden name?" Lorelai asked, glancing at a few papers._

"_Gilmore."_

"_No, no, her maiden name."_

"_Gilmore."_

"_Wait. Y-you're not saying…" Lorelai had a horrified look on her face at the notion._

"_She and Charles were second cousins." Emily answered, matter of fact. She was seemingly unaffected by the disturbing information._

"_Ew! What?!"_

"_Oh, don't act so scandalized. It was not at all uncommon for prominent families to keep the bloodlines closed."_

"_Keeping the bloodlines closed. Is that what we're calling it?"_

"_Well, what would you call it?" Emily asked, looking up from the papers she was going though._

"_Oh, I don't know. How about 'Good morning, Appalachia, I got a mighty cute sister and an extra set of toes.'" Lorelai said, only half joking._

"_No one has any extra toes."_

"_I have a double-jointed thumb." Lorelai informed her._

"_Remarkable. Use it to hand me some more papers, please." Emily requested, ignoring her daughter's antics._

"_I'm sorry, but I don't understand how everyone was so okay with this. I mean, what, did they just go, "What a cute couple. They look so much alike." After hearing no comment from her mother, Lorelai turns to her. "Mom?"_

"_This is to your father. It's a carbon copy of a letter she sent to your father." Emily said, looking at the paper in her hands._

"_Hmm. That's nice."_

"_**My Dearest Richard, It is with heavy heart that I write you this letter tonight, but I cannot stand by and let you make a terrible mistake. Until now, I had thought, hoped, prayed that you would come to the same conclusion that I have. But you have not, and therefore, I feel it is my duty as your mother to beg you to reconsider your impending marriage." **_

_Lorelai gasped at the information._

_**"I'm sure that Emily is a very suitable woman for someone, but not for you. She will not be able to make you happy. She does not have the Gilmore stamina or spark. She is simply not a Gilmore."**_

"_Well, sure, 'cause you weren't directly related to him." Lorelai joked, attempting to lighten the mood._

_**"I don't know the circumstances surrounding your breakup with Pennilyn Lott, but it is still my belief that she is much better suited for you than Emily." **_

_She continued on, her voice breaking slightly as she read more._

_**"I know that the timing of this is particularly awkward, since you are to be married tomorrow."**_

"_No way!"_

_**"But your happiness is too important to me, so timing be damned."**_

"_She wanted Dad to leave you at the altar."_

"_She begged him to leave me at the altar! She begged him in writing, and then she saved the carbons!" Emily exclaimed, growing angry at the heartless actions of her own mother- in- law years ago._

"That was pretty cold." Mollie said, surprised.

"Yes it was." Emily concurred, the resentment evident in her voice. "And then I started thinking about it. What if Richard had thought differently about the letter? What if he had a change of heart, but it came too late, and we were already married? Did he and Pennilyn Lott start an affair then, or did it start later? Or am I just going crazy and nothing of the sort ever happened?"

"The trouble with lying is, after you find out about it, you no longer know if anything the liar told you was ever the truth." Mollie said softly.

"Yes, that is the trouble with lying." Emily agreed, looking back out on the waves as they crashed together in the distance. The sound of the water lapping against the shores soothed her frazzled nerves, and the salty sea air refreshed her spirit.

Maybe she could live without Richard, after all.

But did she want to?

* * *

So... you wanna find out what's around the bend for everyone?

What's Rory going to say to Tristan?

What's Lulu got up her sleeve?

Will Mollie ever get the answers that she seeks?

And just who exactly is the **_REAL_** Master and Commander, anyway?

There's only one way to find out...

_**REVIEW!**_


	10. I Got You Babe

**An Author's Post-Work Ramblings-** Well, let me first apologize for the lateness of this chapter. I'm so sorry that it took me so long to update, but this chapter for some reason was really hard to write. I'm thinking it has something to do with the events surrounding the time I last updated, but other than that... sorry, don't hate me. As a thank you for letting me live, I've made this chapter longer than normal.

A big thank you go out to a lot of people who helped me through the writing of this chapter. Amy, as always, you rock, you are awesome. I honestly could go on for several pages touting Amy, (abc79-de) for the awesome beta job. She is so great at catching my mistakes, and she is slowly but surely curing me of my serial comma disease.

Thank you to Sara (Shouhei) for inspiring the one and only part´hat actually survived the reconstruction of this chapter. (It has been changed _a lot_. And I mean, **_A LOT_**!) So everyone has her to thank for the Mollie/Tristan moment near the end. All her idea, I just took it and started running!

Thank yous also got out to M (Season4.5) and my sis, Eri (mangoes2oo5) for being super patient, and giving me great feedback on the parts I let them see. I couldn't have done this without any of these ladies, they are all great friends, as well as writers themselves. So go and read all their stuff if you haven't already!

Just for your information, this chapter has TRANSITIONAL written all over it. For good reason. There is a lot of information that is very important for later. Even stuff that you don't realize right now is important, will be so later on. It's on the heavy side, but I promise, there is lighter stuff just around the corner. The next chapter is way more lighthearted, and I really like where it's going. (Half of it is already written!) So hang in there.

And now, without further ado, the next installment of The Last!

* * *

Chapter Ten- I Got You Babe 

Graham winced when he heard the front door slam. He did feel bad, and has always hated fighting with Tristan. But that didn't mean that he was going to tell him anything.

It really was none of his business, anyway. What exactly gave Tristan Dugrey the right to pry into his life? Whatever happened that night months ago was better off there, and if he had anything to do with it, that was where it was going to stay.

Graham made his way down the hall to the kitchen, where he pulled out the pitcher of iced tea. Thanks to his mother, the house was never at a loss for freshly brewed iced tea. It was her favorite drink, no matter if it was peach, raspberry, lemon, or plain, she adored the dark liquid and made sure that she always had some on hand.

"That better not be from Long Island." _Speak of the Devil._ Graham turned around and saw his mother leaning against the doorframe, a perfect eyebrow raised, a small smile playing on her lips. He wasn't sure if she was serious or joking, but then, Cassie might not know the answer to that question herself.

He had always had a good relationship with his mother. They were like two peas in a pod. Graham supposed that this stemmed from spending so much time with Isabelle, Mollie, and Tristan so long ago.

Graham wished that he could go back to those days when Isabelle Calloway was still alive. Life had been so much simpler then, when his biggest worry was whose side to take during The Prank Wars. Nothing had been the same after she died.

They were all different. His mother had lost her best friend of nearly twenty-five years. That wasn't something that you rebound from. Isabelle and Cassie had done everything together: they had gone to school together, grown up together, gone to Europe for the first time together, and they had even gotten married and started families around the same time. Graham knew that his mother had buried a part of herself when she watched her beloved comrade being lowered into the earth.

Tristan had been inconsolable after her passing. He had been a lot closer to his aunt than to his mother. Clara just didn't have it in her to be a parent. When she had found out that she was pregnant with Tristan during her third year at Vassar, she and Gregory had married, but after Tristan was born, she handed him off to nannies, and went right back to school, never looking back.

Her older sister's actions had horrified Isabelle. And after she had Mollie, she left Yale to become a full-time mother to not only Mollie, but Tristan as well. More likely than not, when Cassie toted Graham over to the Calloway's home, you could find Tristan toddling around. Graham, Mollie, and Tristan had been best friends all their lives, the Three Amigos, as Lulu had nicknamed them.

It wasn't surprising, considering they were all relatively close in age, Tristan being the oldest; then Graham, only three months younger; followed by Mollie, who was just three days shy of being exactly five months Graham's junior.

Funny, thinking back, Graham didn't have any memories of Clara Dugrey until after Isabelle was gone. If it wasn't for him calling her 'aunt' all the time, Graham could have sworn that she was Tristan's mother. But then, in all of the important ways, she was. It was Isabelle who had taught Tristan how to play the piano. It was Isabelle who went to each and every tennis match, taking him for ice cream after, whether he won or lost. 'As long as you always lose like a winner, and never win like a loser,' she would say. She always expected them to be good sports, no matter how their opponents behaved. Isabelle had been a class act, and she taught all three of them to behave the same way.

In fact, Graham couldn't remember too many times that he had been in the Dugrey mansion as a young child. It wasn't until they were twelve, when Isabelle was gone, that Tristan spent all that much time there. His parents hadn't cared much either way where their son was even then. Graham couldn't count the number of times that Tristan had showed up at his house, too upset to say anything. Every once in a while, he would let something slip about his aunt, but most of the time, they would sit in silence, playing a video game or watching a movie.

Even though both his mother and Tristan hadn't shared much of their grieving processes with him, they were open books compared to Mollie. She had closed in on herself, never saying anything to anyone about her mother. Mollie could barely even speak her name without having to leave the room. Graham was never one for dealing with tears and uncomfortable emotions, so he had steered clear of all Isabelle- shaped topics, for fear of waterworks and sobbing.

He knew that after her mother's death, Mollie had clung to her father, as Stephen had to her. It was in some of those low moments that Graham had been secretly jealous of Mollie. While he still had a mother, she and her father had an actual relationship. He didn't have that with his father, and most likely never would.

But now, Graham wondered why he was so envious of Mollie. The truth was out, and boy, was it damaging. That closeness that Stephen and Mollie had once held so dear was gone, and Graham wasn't so sure that they would ever be able to get it back.

"Hello?" He came back down from his thoughts when Cassie snapped her fingers in front of his eyes. "Is the alcohol going to your head?" He couldn't blame her for not trusting him. After all, he had lost a lot of her trust at the beginning of the summer with the whole drunk driving thing. Graham just prayed that soon they could get back the closeness that they had once shared. He wasn't a mama's boy by any means, but he had been unusually close to his mom, and the distance that his actions had caused was killing him. All he wanted was for her to trust him again.

"Of course not." Graham replied, deciding to keep the conversation light. Lately their chats had been far too heavy for his taste. He didn't want to fight with her anymore. "You know I hate gin."

"Still…" Cassie trailed off, choosing her words carefully. The last thing she wanted was to start an argument. It was all they had been doing these past few months, and she just wanted her life to go back to normal. "You can never be too careful. The Long Island Iced Tea is a powerful beverage. It has magical powers. It's quite possible that you were conceived after one too many Long Island Iced Teas."

"God, Mom!" Graham made a face, showing his disgust at the direction that the conversation had taken. "I really, really, _really_ don't want to hear about anything related to you and Dad. It hurts the whole Immaculate Conception concept I've got going on in my mind."

"Oh, there was nothing immaculate about your conception, Honey." Cassie laughed, trying to pull his hands away from his ears. He twisted away from her, desperate to make her stop. "Quit your humming, I'm done." She finally relented, going to the refrigerator and removing the pitcher to pour herself a glass of iced tea.

They sat in silence, both in deep in thought and unsure about how to act around each other. So much had changed in the past month and a half. It was still unclear whether or not things would ever return to normal.

"So, I heard Tristan leave." She started, trying to gauge his reaction. Graham tensed, but didn't say anything. "What happened?"

"Nothing." Graham muttered. "He just doesn't know when to quit."

"Okay…"

"Tristan thinks that everything is his business." Graham continued, remembering their argument. "He thinks that something happened between Rory and me last year, and that I'm keeping it from him."

"Rory Gilmore? Emily's granddaughter?" Cassie asked. "Didn't we set you two up not too long ago?"

"If you mean that time that you and Mrs. Gilmore ambushed us and practically forced us together, then yes." Graham reminded her. "Anyway, we went out that night, with my buddies. I got toasted, she didn't. Being the smart person that she is, she decided not to get into a car with a drunk driver, while your very, very stupid son chose to go with them and got his sorry ass arrested."

"Ah, so Tristan likes this girl." Cassie stated, understanding a little more. Of course. It all made sense now.

"Yeah." Graham said, a little dejected. "I get why Tristan wants to know, but that doesn't mean that I should have to tell him. Why should he care if anything happened between us? Nothing relevant happened. We barely even knew each other last year."

"Babe, I don't know what to tell you." She sighed, patting his arm reassuringly. "Sometimes you have to suck it up and talk stuff out. You two have been best friends your entire lives, and I doubt that this one fight is going to change that."

"I don't know about that." He said. "You know how Tristan is about his 'Mary.'"

"Rory is Mary?" Cassie raised an eyebrow. "Well, then you, my son, are screwed."

"Gee thanks, Mom."

"Seriously though, just go over and talk it out. Tell him how you feel."

"Mom, this isn't Dr. Phil. I'm not going to go into all that emotional crap."

"Oh, what was I thinking?" Cassie slapped a hand to her forehead dramatically. "I'm so sorry for trying to get you to admit your feelings."

"Sometimes I think that you wish that you had a daughter." Graham laughed, happy at the turn of events. This conversation didn't seem as strained as others had recently. It felt good to laugh with his mother.

"Well, if you were a girl, it would have been much more fun to dress you up as a baby." She chuckled heartily. "Plus, you wouldn't have been able to get me while changing your diapers!"

"Okay, ew." Graham made a face. "That's just wrong."

"But true."

"Maybe it'll be better in the morning, after everyone has a chance to cool down from what happened." Graham thought out loud. "It's been a pretty stressful day."

"How can playing tennis and swimming be stressful?" She asked. "I thought that keeping you in the lap of luxury all summer long would be relaxing."

"You would think that, but you know how quickly things can change."

&

Rory had been wandering around the grounds of Chateau du Sable for hours now. It wasn't too hard to get lost in the beauty that surrounded her, and she welcomed the solitude. Since her arrival, she hadn't had very much time to herself, with Mollie and Tristan pulling her in one direction, or Emily attempting to drag her off to meet another 'dear friend.'

She had tried to call her mother, but Lorelai hadn't answered the house phone and Michel couldn't find her at the inn. What was the point of having a cell phone if she wasn't going to answer it? It had to be some sort of conspiracy.

Rory just wanted to talk to her mother. Lorelai was so good with things like this. Rory hated the feeling in her stomach, the gnawing guilt that was slowly eating her alive, but it just wouldn't go away.

It was kind of ironic that she had run away from Stars Hollow to escape that guilt only to have it come back upon her full force in Newport. But then, she wasn't sure if it had ever really left. The past month had been so horrible. She felt different, and not in a good way. When she had imagined her first time, it was supposed to be with someone that she loved. It was supposed to be with someone who loved her. It was supposed to be exciting and special, and she and her mother were supposed to have a completely inappropriate conversation about how it had gone afterward that would make even the most immodest person blush.

But that wasn't what had happened.

She wasn't in love. Hell, she wasn't even in like. It was stupid and immoral, and it wasn't the way that it was supposed to be.

And the look on her mother's face… that had to be the worst part of the whole ordeal. Rory had let her down in the worst way possible. She had slept with a married man. She had spit on every moral and value that Lorelai had instilled in her for a few moments of awkward, fumbling, uncomfortable, and even at times painful lust.

That was all that it was.

Lust.

Today, looking into that man's eyes today as his entire world came crashing down around his feet had been jarring. Whatever she had felt at the time, whatever she had been thinking, it definitely wasn't worth losing everything. And that was what Stephen Calloway had lost today. Everything.

Rory feared that the most. All her life, she had been the angel child, the bright spot in the dark times. What would everyone think of her if they knew the truth? She didn't want to know. She didn't want to lose their respect like she had lost Lorelai's. It would be too much to bear.

She was reaching the end of a path near the center of the extensive property. From what she could tell, she was to the left of The Rose Garden and just south of the pool. Which meant that if she turned right, she would be near the tennis courts, and she could just follow the low wall to the patio. It was a good thing that Mollie had drawn that map for her when she first came, or else Rory wouldn't have known how to get anywhere on the immense property.

"Oh!" Rory squeaked when she turned the corner, running directly into someone standing at the edge of the path. Quickly, she stood, getting her bearings back.

"Well, hello Dear." Lulu said, holding onto Rory's elbow until she regained her balance. "Fancy running into you here."

"I am so sorry!" Rory exclaimed, feeling guilty for nearly body checking the woman. "I was walking, and I guess I just got a bit lost in my thoughts or something. I didn't mean to-,"

"It's fine. No harm, no foul." Lulu smiled warmly. "I probably shouldn't have been lurking in the shadows anyway. It's just as much my fault as it is yours."

"I guess." Rory was a little unsure. She looked around, happy that at least she knew where she was. There was the wall she was supposed to follow, and the path to the pool, and the tennis court…

And on that tennis court, were Mollie and Tristan. The looked to be deep in conversation, but she couldn't hear either of them speaking. Rory turned away, feeling a little like a voyeur, watching something that wasn't meant to be seen.

"I know, I know." Lulu admitted, sounding regretful. "I shouldn't be spying on them. I didn't intend to, honestly, I just couldn't leave without knowing that my Mollie was alright."

Rory nodded, unsure what to say. She hadn't spent much time with Lulu so far. Even though she seemed like a pretty neat lady, Rory still felt a bit uncomfortable around her.

"Come on, walk an old woman back to the house." Lulu flashed another smile, setting Rory slightly at ease.

"But, don't you want to talk to Mollie?" Rory asked.

"Tristan's with her." Lulu explained, linking arms with the younger woman, turning back the way that Rory had come. "He'll take good care of her." The walked in silence down the trail, but instead of turning left, Lulu turned to the right, heading down a path that Rory hadn't noticed before.

"I suppose that you are wondering why I was hovering in the shadows, watching them." Lulu stated in a tone that Rory couldn't quite place. However, what she said was true. It was strange that this woman who was known for getting involved and speaking her mind would hold back.

"Well, it does seem a bit odd, I guess."

"I did it for her own good." Lulu took a deep breath, trying to loosen the words that seemed caught in her throat. "The last thing that she needs right now is me."

Rory stopped abruptly, surprised by her words. Mollie and Lulu were unbelievably close. The seemed to have the best Grandmother/Granddaughter relationship possible. How in the world could Lulu be the last thing that Mollie needed?

"I know what you're thinking. I must be wrong. But I'm not." Lulu continued, and resumed their trek into the unknown, pulling Rory along. "Mollie has a lot of me in her. She says what she is thinking without apology;, she's strong, smart, and independent." Lulu swallowed, and forged on. "But Mollie is also a lot like her mother. I'm sure you've seen a picture of her by now. The resemblance is uncanny. The same hair, the same cheekbones, the same nose. But the similarities don't end there. Mollie and Isabelle share one fatal flaw. When faced with something that could hurt them, or something that they don't want to do, say, or think about, they flee. Mollie copes with pain and heartache by running away, or pretending that everything is fine, even when it's not."

"I on the other hand, like a good confrontation. I thrive on arguing. Much like Tristan does. I'm sure that you've noticed that trait in him already." Lulu smirked slightly when she noticed the way that Rory's cheeks flushed pink at the sound of her grandson's name. "I don't hide from anything, and I don't let anyone hide either."

"I know my granddaughter. She is already building a wall around this issue. She's not going to talk about it until she's ready to take a sledgehammer to that wall herself." Lulu closed her eyes for a moment. "And if I get near her right now, I'll push her into something that she isn't ready for, and I don't want her to self-destruct again."

Rory wondered if those words meant that Mollie had fallen apart before. It must have been a bad time, or else Lulu probably wouldn't be here talking to her.

"This house seems to be full of people who are hiding this summer." Lulu acknowledged, changing the subject slightly. "Mollie, Tristan, your grandmother, even you."

"What?" Rory was surprised. The only people that knew why she was on the run were back in Stars Hollow. But sure enough, standing before her was someone else who seemed to know. Rory could see it in her eyes. It was more than obvious that the cat had been let out of the bag.

"Oh, don't look so shocked." Lulu waved her hand. "I knew about your little transgression before you were even in Rhode Island."

"But how?" Rory could barely believe it. How was it possible?

"I have known your grandmother for nearly forty-five years, and in all that time, I have never known her to be able to keep a secret that wasn't her own."

"But how?" Rory repeated. She hadn't told Emily about Dean, and Lorelai would rather gouge out her own eyes than have a conversation with her mother on most days. Who else knew?

"It seems that my very best friend is as skilled an eavesdropper as my granddaughter is." Lulu said, patting her arm. "She's good, you didn't stand a chance."

"Great." Rory muttered, her mood dropping even lower than it already was. "So I suppose that you hate me too?"

"Oh, Dear, it takes a lot more than one stupid mistake to make me hate someone. And that's all that it was. A mistake." Lulu assured her, making a sharp turn, stopping abruptly.

Rory gasped, taking in the sight around her. It was breathtaking. They were surrounded by white flowers, cascading down trellises that reached up toward the sky, and the long path seemed to go on forever. Rory couldn't remember seeing anything so beautiful before. It seemed like a white floral fantasy world.

"I call this The White Way of Delight." Lulu looked proud, smiling widely at Rory's reaction. She never tired of watching people take this particular spot in.

"Like in _Anne of Green Gables_?" Rory asked, turning back to her. There were so many flowers. There had to be millions of them.

"Exactly." Lulu smiled. "It is my very favorite book. I always thought of my husband and myself as Gilbert and Anne come to life."

"This is amazing." Rory breathed, still looking around at the beauty surrounding her. "I think that this might be my favorite place here. I mean, this is even better than the library."

"There are a few special places tucked away here." Lulu said, linking arms with Rory again. Rory followed her lead, still in awe. "I have a habit of creating special places out of my favorite books."

"That's really cool." Rory said, less in shock now.

"I took you here for a reason." Lulu explained. "I know that you have been feeling badly about your actions a few months ago, and I'm sure that you have been making comparisons of your mistake and the gross misjudgment that my son-in-law made years ago." Her eyes went cold, and Rory felt her tense next to her, but still Lulu continued to speak. "There is no similarity to the situations. He was unfaithful to my daughter countless times. He was older. He knew better, and still, he did it. He hurt my daughter, and my granddaughter."

"You, Rory, have been punishing yourself for one night. You are young, and you have already acknowledged that you made a horrible error. He didn't do that. He continued on with his life, and I am certain that if Mollie hadn't found out the truth, it would have remained a secret."

"I just want you to remember something that a wise woman once taught me." Lulu stopped when they reached the end of the path. "Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it."

"Anne Shirley said that." Rory smiled, remembering the books she enjoyed as a young child.

"You can learn a lot from the characters in stories." Lulu chuckled. Rory was smart. Tristan needed someone smart. _What a good match they'll make._ "After all, L.M. Montgomery wouldn't have named all of those books after Josie Pye, now would she? Anne may have been a little slow on the uptake, but was nonetheless a wise woman, because while she made plenty of mistakes, she almost always learned from them, and didn't let them run her life. Maybe you should try it sometime."

"Maybe I will." Rory smiled, feeling better than she had in a long time. Who would have known that she would be glad to have someone know her deepest, darkest secret? It felt like a weight was lifted off of her shoulders. After all, if Lulu was this understanding, maybe everyone else would be too.

Maybe.

Or maybe not.

Why did everything have to be so complicated?

**&**

He found her on the tennis court.

That wasn't very surprising. Mollie could often be found there, brushing up on her backhand, or perfecting her killer serve. But the scene before him was anything but usual.

Mollie was always a whirlwind of activity. No matter what, she was running, jumping, skipping, and on the rare occasion, he had seen her prance about while causing mischief, or meddling in other people's lives. Her constant state of movement was reassuring. It was her way, and her loved ones accepted it as her nature.

So when Tristan arrived to find her lying on a bench, staring up at the sky, he was worried. More than worried. This wasn't going to just go away with a joke and an ice cream sundae.

"Hey." He approached her cautiously, almost unsure whether or not he should disturb her. Mollie turned her head slowly, acknowledging his presence before turning back toward the heavens.

"Hey."

Tristan sat down across from her, placing a bag on her stomach. "What's this?" She asked, opening one eye to examine the chilly contents. "Cold Stone. Nice."

"Only the best for you." Tristan smiled, slightly encouraged as she sat up and opened the bag. "One Mud Pie Mojo to cure what ails you." He was even more relieved when she dug into the sundae filled with Oreos, peanut butter, almonds, fudge, and fluff with a vengeance. If he didn't know better, he'd swear she hadn't eaten in a month. For someone so skinny, Mollie could certainly finish her share of desserts.

"Where's Graham?" Mollie asked, her voice slightly muffled by a mouthful of ice cream. He must have gone home; otherwise, he would be sitting across from her, right next to Tristan on the bench. The Three Amigos always stuck together, through thick and thin, and sick and sin.

"I just brought him back to Orchard Hill. He couldn't stay any longer. Part of his punishment." Tristan told her, wondering how she was able to polish off so much of the sweet confection so quickly. Sure, ice cream melts, but still… he would be shocked if she wasn't sick in a few hours.

"Oh."

"He wanted to stay, but you know how his mom is about this." Tristan added quickly, not wanting Mollie to think that Graham would abandon her in her time of need.

"It's okay, Tristan." Mollie held up a hand to stop him. And he said that she had a problem with rambling. "I'm not mad at Graham for leaving."

"Oh, okay." Tristan breathed a small sigh of relief.

"You know, it's kind of funny how one mistake can royally screw up your life." Mollie pondered, picking up a wayward tennis ball that had found its way under the bench.

"Yeah," Tristan agreed, unsure of which way she was going to go with her statement. He decided to keep his answer ambiguous, so he wouldn't force her into any conversation she wasn't ready for. "He's going to be paying for this one for a long time."

"I still can't believe that he would do something so stupid." Mollie threw the ball up in the air, catching it in the other hand. She repeated the action again, picking up speed with each toss.

"Definitely."

"I mean, getting into a car with a drunk driver? What was he thinking?" She threw the ball a little too hard, sending it over to Tristan, who caught it easily and chucked it back to her.

"I think that was the problem, Mollie. He wasn't thinking."

"I hope that he learned his lesson." Mollie said, continuing their rally.

"I think Cassie is making sure of that." Tristan assured her, remembering what Graham was going to be forced to do.

"Yeah. She told me that he's got to talk to kids about his experience for the next two years."

"Well, considering that Graham is petrified of speaking in public, it's a sufficiently evil punishment." Tristan shuddered at the though of having to face his worst fear over and over again. It was too much.

"When's his first gig?"

"In the fall, when school starts." Tristan told her.

"Nothing this summer?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"I think she wanted to give him plenty of time to think about what awaits him."

"Wow. That's pretty good." Mollie was surprised by the level of torture that Cassie Sullivan was operating on. Graham's crime was a major one, sure, but did it really warrant this level of evilness?

But then, her father hadn't been punished for his sins against her mother, and look at where it got him. Disinherited and disowned by his father and only daughter. The increasingly familiar stab of pain shot through her again, and she lie back down on the bench, squeezing her eyes shut to block out the dimming rays of light from the setting sun.

Would this ever get easier? Would this pain ever go away? Or would she have to live with it, and the questions that were swimming around inside her head for the rest of her life?

Tristan didn't know what to say. He knew that Mollie needed to talk. He could feel the pain radiating off of her in waves, and all he wanted to do was to make it better. If only he knew how.

"Molls…" He trailed off, unsure of what to say, and exactly how to say it.

"Stop." Came the small, yet firm voice of his cousin.

"But-," he attempted to start again, only to meet her opposition to the conversation again.

"Tristan, I can't do this." Mollie sat up again, looking into his eyes. His level of concern for her touched her, though she wasn't surprised. They always were more like siblings than cousins. He was, in many ways, the older brother that she always wished he was. Mollie knew that more than anything, he wanted to make this better for her, like it was some boo-boo he could kiss and magically heal. But it wasn't. He couldn't help her with this, not yet anyway. "I've had all of those thoughts inside of me for so long, that now that they are out, I don't know what to say anymore. I need time to think. I just want everything to be normal again, the way that it used to be."

On some level, she knew that things would never really be normal again. At least, not the 'normal' that she had known before. But maybe, just maybe, if Mollie pretended that everything was okay, it really would be.

"_Mollie'll talk to someone when she's ready to talk to someone. She'll do what she wants, when she wants." _Graham's words were never truer than in that moment. Tristan knew that Mollie couldn't be made to do anything, ever. No matter how much she might need to, if she didn't want to do something, the girl would not budge. He also knew that if he pushed her, she would rebel the only way she knew how, and he wanted to keep her from self-destruction.

"Okay, but just for now. Remember, you're not alone." Tristan reminded her, enveloping her in a tight, reassuring embrace. "I've always got your back."

"I know." She giggled. "I got you, Babe."

"Damn straight." Tristan chuckled, pausing for a beat. "Wait. Does that make me Sonny or Cher?"

"What does that matter?" Mollie asked, wondering where he was going to go with this.

"Well, one of them kicked the bucket a few years ago."

"So you would rather be a gay icon?"

"Am I not pretty enough to be a gay icon?" Tristan asked, in complete seriousness. Mollie stared at him for a second, as if he were growing a second head out of his shoulder.

"Oh brother." She said finally, getting up from the bench, heading for the gate.

"That hurts." Tristan called, chasing after her. "What is it? My nose? My hair? It must be my hair. It's too messy. Gay men like to be more kempt. Am I right?"

"Sure Tris, you have heterosexual hair." Mollie rolled her eyes at him. "Are we seriously having this conversation?"

"At least we're not having this conversation seriously." Tristan smirked, opening the latch and holding the door to the tennis courts open for her to pass through.

"There is that."

"Come on. Let's go back home before Gran sends out a search party." Tristan suggested, slipping an arm around her shoulders before leading the way back to the house.

**&**

She didn't know what to do.

All those years ago, she had been entrusted with a secret.

Seven long years.

She thought that she was home free.

She thought that it would remain a secret.

She didn't want to do it.

But she had to.

She made a promise.

And she always kept her promises.

Always.

* * *

I'll let you in on a little secret... 

Sure you want to know?

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Reviewing makes my day!

It makes me happy!

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	11. The Kindred Spirit Meets the REAL Master...

**An Author's Insanely Late Night Ramblings-** Good Morning Readers! Just got home from work. At Three in the morning. The joys of having a visit to the store. And guess who gets to go in at Ten? I just finished this today, after finishing most of my paper, and wanted to post it. And as luck would have it, almost a minute after I sat down at my computer, I got this in the old inbox! So, I figured, since I was already up, I might as well post this!

Thanks go out to my two wonderful betas, Sara and Amy. Amy, you are absolutely awesome, your kind words definately made my day. And your fabulous beta skills definately made the chapter. Sara, I thank you so much for all the help in making the first part great. You definately gave me the confidence that I didn't go to far.

**Dedication-** I don't dedicate stuff to people on aregular basis. Mostly, because very rarely does someone do something good enough to deserve it. But M (Season4.5) definately deserves it. Awhile back, a friend of mine asked me which episode a specific quote came from, and I searched high and low for it, but didn't find it. I involved a few buddies in the hunt, and by the end of the day, we were all going nuts. Then, M came in and saved the day! So, for restoring my sanity, as well as the sanity of a few others, I dedicate this, Chapter Eleven of the last, to you. I told you I'd give you something good for it! My love and affection was only temporary til something much more tangible came out of my brain.

Enough! Now read!

* * *

Chapter Eleven- The Kindred Spirit Meets the REAL Master and Commander 

"No! No! No!" Mollie cried out again, frustrated beyond belief. She had been attempting to teach Rory to play tennis for hours, but no matter what it seemed like there was no hope for her to learn.

Rory sighed again. "What now?" They had been at this for the entire morning, and she just wasn't getting the hang of it. Rory wasn't used to not being good at something. Usually, she got a handle on new things almost immediately, and it was really starting to get to her.

But it wasn't all her fault. Mollie might be one of the best tennis players according to the state of Connecticut, but she was not the best instructor. Rory was trying her best to follow 'the rules of the game' as Mollie put it, but it was hard. Mollie was explaining the sport over Rory's head, using terminology and phrases that may mean something to an expert, but were confusing to a novice like Rory.

"You're doing it wrong." Mollie called over the net.

"I'm doing exactly what you told me to do."

"No, you're not!"

"Yes, I am!"

Mollie stomped her foot, and took a breath. "No, you're not. I told you to cut up, not sweep across!"

"What?" Rory asked, more than confused. She had no idea what she was doing. How was she supposed to know the difference between the two?

"You have to cut upward!" Mollie yelled a little louder so Rory could hear her better.

"I still don't get it!" Rory was getting ready to give up. Learning to play tennis wasn't worth the aggravation. It hadn't been all that important to her life for the first twenty years, so more than likely, it wasn't going to kill her to be ignorant about the sport for the next sixty or so.

Mollie sighed, and picked up her racquet, quickly demonstrating what she wanted Rory to do. "See?" She asked when she was finished.

"No!"

Mollie let out a cry of frustration and threw her racquet down. "I give up!"

"You can't do that!" Rory complained, hands on her hips. "You're supposed to teach me how to play!"

"That was before I knew you were unteachable!"

Rory gasped. "Hey!"

Lulu and Emily, who had been watching their granddaughters bicker throughout the entire 'lesson', couldn't keep it in any longer. They both burst out laughing at the comedic reactions of both girls. If they didn't know better, they might have thought that it was a routine of sorts.

"What a lovely girl your granddaughter is, Lulu." Emily handed her friend a glass of lemonade before pouring one for herself. "It was so wonderful of her to offer to help Rory with her tennis."

"Well, I don't know how much of a help Mollie is being." Lulu chuckled, watching the girls continue to argue. "Rory doesn't seem to be learning all that much under Mollie's tutelage. If anything, she seems to be getting worse."

"Oh, you know how the Gilmore women are." Emily took a sip, continuing. "They may be quick with their words, but when it comes to athletics, well, it isn't always pretty."

"I hope you aren't including yourself in that statement, Em." Lulu raised an eyebrow. "After all, if it wasn't for you, we would have never won the Smith/Vassar field hockey game our junior year."

"Oh, honestly, Lulu, it was a team effort." Emily smiled, her eyes glossing over as she relived the excitement of years past. "You were there too."

"Yes, but I was terrible. They only kept me on because I knew all the dirt. What fun would the road trips have been if not for my gossip?"

"That is true." Emily set her glass down on the table in front of the pair. "Have I told you how happy I am that I came here instead of going over to dreary old Europe?"

"Why, no you haven't." Lulu said, turning to face her. "I must say, you seem very happy today. Much happier than you have been in a long time."

"Well, I have had a lot on my mind lately." Emily acknowledged. "It was such a relief to unload some of those things yesterday."

"Yesterday?" Lulu's eyes narrowed. "What happened yesterday?"

"Oh, well, I had such a nice chat with your granddaughter yesterday on the beach." Emily took a sip of lemonade. "It seems I have found a kindred spirit here at Chateau du Sable."

_Kindred spirit?_ Lulu's eyes narrowed further, realizing what must have taken place on the beach the day before. She, Lulu Carrington, had been scooped.

Well, Mollie wasn't going to get away with that one.

"Girls!" Lulu called over to them, waving them over. "How about a break?"

The two grumbling girls trudged over to the gate off to the side of the court, letting themselves into the small viewing area where their grandmothers sat. Each grabbed a bottle of ice-cold water from the bar in the corner, and flopped tiredly on the bench along the edge of the space.

"Am I really that bad?" Rory asked after a few moments of silence. She took a long swig of water and leaned back against the blue- and green- striped cushion. Her arms ached and her lower back was killing her. How in the world did people do this all the time? Rory could tell that she was going to be in serious pain later on.

"Honestly?" Mollie asked, a little hesitant about giving her opinion.

"Yeah."

"If you were a movie sequel, you would be _2 Fast 2 Furious_."

"I can't be that bad!" Rory gasped. She knew that she was no Venus Williams, but still … could she be that horrible?

"Don't take it personally."

"How can I not take that personally?"

Silence fell upon them again. "You know, it had potential." Mollie said suddenly.

"What did?"

"_2 Fast 2 Furious_."

Rory snorted. "Yeah right."

"I'm serious."

"You're insane."

Mollie shook her head. "All it needed was a better plot … and a better script."

"And a better cast." Rory pointed out.

"No, it just needed Vin Diesel." Mollie smiled. "Paul Walker may be hot and all, but Vin was the best part of that movie."

"So you actually liked _The Fast and the Furious_?" Rory asked, not quite able to reconcile the thought of someone being able to appreciate the comedy of _Arsenic and Old Lace_, while at the same time enjoying a movie about street-racing thieves.

"Of course!" Mollie smiled. "Well, maybe just one part."

"The scene with Vin …"

"In the garage …"

"With Michelle Rodriguez?" Rory finished, understanding perfectly.

"With the lifting, and the squeezing …" Mollie trailed off, a dreamy look on her face. Both girls sighed, remembering the scene in question. "I love that part."

"Every woman on the planet loved that part." Rory pointed out. "It's a fantasy come to life. What's not to love about a rendezvous in a garage with a hot mechanic looking under your hood, revving your engine?"

"You've thought about this before, haven't you?"

Rory smiled. "Well, it was Lane's guilty pleasure movie for 2001. She kept a copy at my house so her mother couldn't find it. But it was watched many times, and discussed at length."

Mollie nodded, and went silent again. "I wish I was Michelle Rodriguez."

Rory looked at her. "No you don't."

"No I don't. She looks kind of scary."

"Very true." Rory agreed. "I think it's the teeth, personally."

"Why did she get to do a scene like that?" Mollie wondered. "Why not me?"

"Because at the time they filmed that movie, you were major jailbait." Rory couldn't figure out if she wanted to laugh or cringe at the thought of a fourteen-year-old Mollie playing opposite of the movie star in his mid-thirties.

"So?" Mollie said petulantly. "My ass is so much better than hers."

"Okay." Rory didn't like the turn that their conversation had taken. "I'm not going there."

"Hey." A voice came from behind them, hopefully saving Rory from her ill-fated chat.

Rory turned around, relieved to see the cavalry arriving. Surely Mollie would drop it now that Graham and Tristan were here. Who would want to compare their body parts with those of celebrities in front of their cousin and childhood best friend? "Hey guys, what's up?"

Apparently, Mollie had other ideas, and they didn't involve starting a new conversation. "Graham, Tristan, you guys think that I have a nicer ass than Michelle Rodriguez, right?" She asked, an expectant look on her face.

Tristan's nose crinkled in disgust at the thought. "I'm not going there, Molls. It's just way too twisted."

"Fine." Mollie huffed, annoyed, yet understanding of his position. "You are excused on the grounds of being a blood relation. Graham, what are your thoughts?" She turned on him, waiting for his answer.

"Can't I get excused from the questioning too?" Graham looked desperate to escape. His eyes darted from side to side, and he was starting to sweat.

"No."

"Then I plead the fifth." Graham started to back up, but Mollie advanced, not taking no for an answer.

"You can't do that!"

"I just did."

Mollie shook her head. "I refuse to accept that. Come on, one squeeze." She said, turning her athletic frame around to accommodate her request.

"No!"

"Come on, Graham!" Mollie whined loudly. "I'm not asking you to solve world hunger. Just grab my ass!"

"No!" Graham shouted, stumbling back, fumbling with the latch on the gate door and releasing the catch just in the nick of time. He fled, cutting across the lawn and down by the rose gardens, with Mollie close on his heels, still ordering him to feel her up.

"Oh, my God." Rory breathed, still a little in shock from the display they had all just witnessed. "Did that actually just happen?"

"Yup." Was Tristan's answer, his astonished expression mirroring her own. But that was nothing next to the look on poor Emily. The older woman's face looked as if she had been the recipient of a bad brow lift, and if her jaw dropped any lower, it would have had to be detached from her skull.

Lulu, on the other hand, couldn't contain herself. She was clutching the armrest to keep herself from collapsing from laughter onto the tile floor. "I swear, NBC should just scrap _Passions_ and _Days of Our Lives_ and start filming the goings on in this house. Drama, secrets, intrigue, and moments of sheer, unadulterated comedy happen everyday on these grounds."

"Not to mention the attractive young cast, Gran." Tristan smirked, leering playfully at Rory. Yet again, she was wearing Mollie's clothing. He couldn't believe that a simple sleeveless polo and a tennis skirt could be that sexy. Granted, the clothing was Mollie's, so the shirt was slightly too small, and the skirt shorter than average, just the way his cousin liked them, but they still fell under the category of subtly sexy. After all, the outfit still had to be appropriate for the tennis court, not a rave.

Rory rolled her eyes, but try as she might, she couldn't help but smile. It was flattering to hear him talk about her that way, despite the fierce feminism that Lorelai had instilled in her from the time of conception.

"Well, I guess I just wasn't meant to learn to play tennis today." Rory said, relieved that the agony was over. Maybe she could finish that new Melville she found in the library a few days before. "Considering my teacher has deemed me unteachable."

"Oh no!" Lulu clucked her tongue. "And after you worked so hard."

"Yeah, and even after four hours, I still suck." Rory pointed out, hoping to get her point across.

"Don't feel bad.," Tristan smiled encouragingly. "Mollie couldn't teach her way out of a paper bag. She's terrible."

"I guess." Somehow, she didn't think that her torture was over.

"She's amazing on the court." Tristan continued. "Hell, she was the Connecticut State champion two years in a row. Mollie's got more tennis trophies than Andre Agassi. But teaching someone to play and playing are two very different things. Teaching requires a softer touch, and if you haven't noticed, Mollie's got the subtlety of a sledgehammer going into drywall."

Tristan's smile grew wider as Rory laughed. The tension mounting between the two teens was too obvious for Lulu to ignore, and so she decided to take matters into her own hands. "Then it's settled." She said, standing up.

Both Rory and Tristan looked confused. "What's settled Gran?" Tristan asked, not understanding.

"You will teach Rory to play tennis." Lulu announced, pulling a still shocked Emily to her feet. "Come on, Emily, we'll go see about lunch, and leave Tristan to work his magic."

"But-," Rory protested, seeing her relaxing afternoon of reading slipping away quickly. Plus, she didn't know how good of an idea it was to be so near Tristan right now. After all, she hadn't quite made a decision, despite the way she felt around him.

"I'm not taking no for an answer." Lulu said firmly, leading her best friend, who was finally starting to come around, to the gate. "Have fun!"

"You don't have to do this." Rory suddenly felt shy around him, like she had regressed four years and was now her sixteen-year-old self, standing before Tristan in the halls of Chilton. "I mean, you can, if you want, but I don't want you to feel-."

"Wow." Tristan couldn't help but smirk. "You still haven't mastered speaking in clear, succinct sentences yet, have you?"

"Hey!" Rory narrowed her eyes, annoyed. "I have mastered the art of speaking just fine, thank you!"

"Then try it." Tristan stepped closer, anchoring his hand on her chin, using his fingers to move her bottom lip as he spoke for her. "Say, 'Tristan, I would love for you to teach me how to play tennis. Thank you so much for the offer.'"

Rory nearly jumped when he came in contact with her skin. Such a simple gesture, not at all meant to be sexual, and yet, so simply sensual. "Tristan, I would _love_ for you to teach me how to play tennis. Thank you so much for the offer," she repeated, forcing her voice to remain syrupy sweet.

"Now, was that so hard?" Tristan asked, grabbing his racquet from the bench, and leading the way back to the tennis court. "Shall we?"

Still smiling innocently, Rory passed through the open gate, but not before the butt of her racquet came in contact with Tristan's gut, catching him off guard. He doubled over in shock and slight pain.

"Oops!" Rory covered her mouth with her hand. "I'm so sorry Tris. My racket must have slipped. Can you ever forgive me?"

"Of course." Tristan nodded. "It was an accident, right?"

"Of course." Rory turned, going toward her side of the court. She leapt ten feet in the air when she felt the taught strings against her butt. "Hey!" She cried out, whipping around to see a very smug-looking Tristan Dugrey staring back at her, not even bothering to feign innocence as she had only a moment prior.

"Oops!" Tristan shook his head sadly, waxing apologetic. "My racquet must have slipped." He mocked her further; barely able to contain his laughter at the way her face was turning red. "Can you ever forgive me?"

&--

Lulu's grin broadened as she watched the scene before her unfold. _Almost there_, she thought to herself. _Tristan had better come through, or I've been sitting in these bushes for the past twenty minutes for nothing_.

It occurred to her that it might be a little abnormal for her to be hiding in the shrubbery spying on her grandson. But then, Lulu Carrington was never one to do anything the normal way. And besides, she had just handed Tristan a perfect opportunity. She had to see what he would do with it.

"Hey Gran!" Mollie hissed, pushing low branches out of the way before kneeling on the ground next to her grandmother. "Have you seen Graham? I almost had him for a second, but he slipped away somewhere around the dogwoods. He's in pretty good shape."

"Don't you think it's a touch unladylike to be chasing a boy around so he can 'grab your ass,' as you so eloquently put it earlier?"

"Says the woman squatting in the dirt so she can spy on a couple of teenagers," Mollie countered, flashing a grin.

"How did you know that I was even here?" Lulu asked. "You left before I set them up."

"Gran, you are a woman of many, many talents, but covert ops are definitely not one of them." Mollie moved a patch of foliage out of the way so she could get a better view of the happenings on the tennis court. "You suck at the spy game."

"Shh!" Lulu and Mollie sat still as stone, praying that Tristan wouldn't spot them when he ran over to retrieve a wayward ball. Both let out a sigh of relief when he jogged back to his place beside Rory, ball in hand. "That was close."

"Way too close."

"Now, why are you so hell bent on tormenting poor Graham?" Lulu asked quietly, trying not to garner any attention from the two on the court. "What did the boy ever do to you?"

"All I want is a simple answer to a simple question." Mollie shrugged, as though the answer was more than obvious. "I didn't realize that it was going to require a lifeline of some sort."

"Mollie darling, you should have seen the stricken look on his face." Lulu admonished softly. "You were being completely evil, and you know it."

"So?" Mollie whispered back. "What about me?"

"What about you?"

"We're friends, he and I."

"Yes, I'm aware of that."

"So, in the spirit of friendship, why couldn't he have helped me out?" Mollie shifted on the ground slightly. "His not assisting me in my time of trial may have caused irreparable psychological damage. I mean really, am I that undesirable?" Mollie pondered dramatically. "Am I unattractive? Unfit? Is he ashamed of me? Should I be walking around Newport with a paper bag over my head, so as not to scar the tiny children?"

"Oh, the lengths you will go to get what you want." Lulu laughed lightly. Sometimes, watching Mollie was like looking into a mirror. "You are shameless." Lulu shook her head. Both turned their attentions back to the court, watching as the 'lesson' went on, the student and teacher unaware of their audience.

"Wow," Mollie commented, tilting her head slightly to the side. "She actually doesn't suck." But as she continued to watch the scene unfold, she gasped. "Hey! You, you, you fink!"

"What?" Lulu looked at her innocently.

"I was supposed to get them together this summer!" Mollie squeaked, trying to stay quiet. "I called it!"

"Yes, but I also seem to remember saying something to the effect of 'Emily is my best friend, it's my job to find out what is going on.' Or did I just imagine that?" Lulu raised an eyebrow. "Mollie, you are quite the little schemer, but never forget who the true Master and Commander is. You have a long way to go before I relinquish that title to you."

"But, but, you cheated!" Mollie punched the dirt in front of her in frustration.

"So did you." Lulu smiled at her. "I had to teach you a lesson."

"That's not fair!" Mollie whined.

"Life's not fair."

Mollie turned back to the court, a resigned look on her face. She couldn't believe that she had been one upped by her grandmother. It really wasn't fair. After all, she hadn't meant to find out all about Emily. She didn't intend for her grandmother's best friend to unload all of her deep, dark secrets on her.

But it had been fun, to learn all the things that Gran so desperately wanted to know. She hadn't exactly stopped Emily from telling her. Mollie had wanted to know all the things that Lulu didn't.

But this, the retribution, was not fun. Not at all.

A rustling in the bushes only a few feet from the set of bushes that she and Lulu were crouched in caught her attention. _Probably just a squirrel, or a bird, or something_, Mollie thought, looking closer. But then, when did squirrels wear robin's egg blue waffle weave polo shirts? "GRAHAM!" She shrieked, and before Lulu could stop her, she had flown the coop, taking off after the poor boy once again.

"Damn it!" Lulu cried, her hopes for her grandson disappearing as quickly as Graham had around the corner, with Mollie hot on his tail.

This was going to be a lot harder than she thought.

**--&--**

Taking her stance once again, Rory gripped her racquet and readied herself for the ball that Tristan was about to send her way. _Please don't let me miss again, please don't let me miss again,_ she prayed silently to herself, hoping that some higher power would hear her plea and take pity on her.

Tristan hit the bright green ball, and Rory inhaled deeply, and swung hard. Thankfully, she did make contact. Unfortunately, Rory hit the ball too early, and it careened through the air, hitting the top of the fence before bouncing off somewhere near the bushes.

"See?" She called out to Tristan, who was jogging back over to her after locating the ball. "I suck!" Rory slumped her shoulders in defeat.

"You don't suck." Tristan smirked at her, jumping over the net with ease. _Why can't he just walk the extra ten steps around it like every other human being?_ Rory wondered to herself. But then, Tristan wasn't just like every other human being. There was something about him that was unique, something that made her annoyed at him and attracted to him at the very same time.

"Yes, I do." Rory sighed. "I can't even get the stupid ball to go into the stupid square."

"That'll come later." Tristan assured her. "Accuracy can be taught. You have a decent natural grip, and nice clean swing."

"Seriously?" Rory asked, a bit doubtful.

"Seriously." Tristan smiled at her, and she couldn't help but return it. "You just have to get the timing down. You keep swinging too early or too late."

"Huh?"

"Didn't Mollie go over this with you?" Tristan asked.

"No, she skipped over timing and went straight for telling me that I was doing it wrong." Rory explained. "It was an interesting lesson. Our grandmothers seemed to enjoy it."

"Yeah, Gran always seems to find pleasure in other people's discomfort." Tristan agreed. "It's part of her charm."

"Yeah, but it's a lot less fun when the discomfort is my own." Rory complained, but taking her stance once more. "Hit me with your best shot."

"I'm not sure you're quite ready for what I've got." Tristan laughed and hit a ball in her direction. Rory waited for it to bounce, hoping that it wouldn't go shooting off into space once more. But once more, it headed off into the air, nowhere near the place that it was supposed to end up in.

"Try it again," Tristan called to her. Rory was surprised at how patient Tristan was being. If someone had told her in the beginning of the summer that she would not only be on a tennis court, but with Tristan Dugrey as her instructor, she would have died from laughter.

But then, at the beginning of the summer, she didn't think she would be an adulteress either.

_Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it_. Rory remembered the wise words that Lulu had recited the night before, and pushed her past indiscretion out of her head, hopefully for the last time.

"When you hit a backhand, try to bend your knees a little." Tristan instructed before he gently lobbed another ball at her, which she returned awkwardly. "Okay," Tristan walked around the net, setting his racquet down on the side of the court. "Try a double-handed grip. It'll give you more power and control of your stroke."

Rory put both hands on the racquet handle. "It's not a baseball bat, Ror." Tristan smirked.

"Right, because I'm such an authority on the proper ways to handle various pieces of sports equipment." Rory rolled her eyes and tried to adjust her hands.

"Here," Tristan moved her fingers into the correct positions. "Your right hand goes here, and line up the V of your index finger and your thumb with the side of the racquet. Then, put your left hand on top.

"Oh, and watch your feet." Tristan grabbed her hips, twisting her body slightly to a better angle. "Make sure they are parallel to the net."

"Uh huh." Rory murmured, trying to focus on what Tristan was telling her to do. But his hands were on her hips, burning fingerprints into her skin through the thin layer of cotton her skirt provided.

"Swing." Rory was practically on autopilot as his arms slipped around her, his hands covering her own to swing at the ball he dropped in front of them.

A smile spread across Rory's face when the ball sailed cleanly over the net, landing on the other side. "I hit that!" She squealed in delight.

"Felt good, didn't it?" Tristan grinned as she turned in his arms to hug him tightly.

"Amazing." Rory whispered, looking into his eyes. Suddenly, neither of them were talking about tennis anymore. She was more aware than ever before of just how blue his eyes were.

He took a shaky breath, his eyes still locked with hers. What was he so nervous about? Why could he barely breathe? This feeling was so foreign to him, uncomfortable, and yet, he wouldn't want to change anything. Slowly, so as not to startle her, he lowered his head, the distance between them growing smaller and smaller.

She could feel his breath against her mouth, against her cheeks. He was so close to her, and Rory's body was pressed tightly against his. She could think of nothing except for the way that his arms were still securely wrapped around her, and the way that his muscular chest molded so perfectly to her own soft curves.

There was nothing left between them. They were bound together in nearly every other place. Tristan's gaze bore into her own, and she knew that this was it. It was the point of no return. He was going to kiss her.

"GRAHAM!" The loud screech tore the two apart, breaking the spell they were both under. Rory frantically looked around, and caught a glimpse of Mollie in hot pursuit of Graham before they disappeared around the corner once again.

"I, uh, we … um … ." Rory could barely form words. This couldn't be happening. What was she doing? What were they doing? "I'm going to go, um, and uh, see about … ." Rory sighed in defeat. "Thank you, you know, for the lesson," she stammered before she took flight.

Tristan watched her go, frustrated. Why did this keep happening to him? Why did every kiss they shared always end in her running from him? Well, they hadn't exactly kissed this time. They had been close, painfully close, but yet again it had ended in disaster.

When he was younger, he had played baseball during the summer. It was a fun sport, and he had been good at it. Tristan remembered one game when he had been the catcher. An umpire was only a few feet behind him, and over and over he had heard the older man say one phrase.

_Three strikes, your out!_

Three strikes.

Three kisses, if he counted that last almost kiss.

Maybe this time, he was out.


	12. The Last One's a Doozy

**An Author's Very Rambly, Very Inecusably Late Ramblings-** So, I know that I suck for keeping this to myself for the past… (looks at watch) year. I'm aware. And I do feel guilty. Not the kind of guilt that will keep me from functioning day to day in my very hectic, very crazy, very busy life, but it's guilt nonetheless. Anyway. Here it is, I've been told by Ames that it's good, and I like it, finally, so I am deeming it worthy of the masses, finally, after writing this for one year. And sadly, this isn't even the piece that has taken me the longest to write. Something much harder and way closer to my heart currently holds that place, and maybe someday I'll win my battle with it and be able to post it.

**Thank You-** A huge thank you goes out to my beta Ames, who is the best beta and an even better friend than a girl like me, with all my moodiness and rants deserves. She's fabulous, and we all worship at her feet. Or at least we all should. And to Jackie and M, who both stick it out with me and put up with my crankiness and my nutty little tangents because they love me so much. And that love is returned, as is the willingness to put up with crankiness and moodiness and nutty tangents and rants, because Lord knows I deserve the payback for my HB rants alone.

So, here you go, Chapter Twelve, and let me just give you a warning, the title doesn't lie. The last one is a doozy. Don't say you weren't told to stay away, my faint of heart readers!

* * *

Chapter Twelve- The Last One's a Doozy

_Hurry, hurry, hurry,_ Mollie thought to herself, quickly turning down the street and making a turn that was only slightly illegal, and sped dangerously past the large estates with imposing edifices and perfectly manicured lawns and made an insanely quick left; the tires of the Lexus sending a shower of gravel from the driveway onto the impossibly green grass before squealing to a stop.

"CASSIE!" Mollie screeched, bursting in through the front door of Orchard Hill. "HELP ME!"

In seconds, the usually calm and collected Cassie Sullivan all but ran from the drawing room, heels clicking and clacking like mad on the mahogany floors. "Mollie! Honey, what's wrong?" She asked breathlessly, leaning against the wall for support as she breathed heavily.

"Everything!" Mollie wailed, as she dumped the armload of expensive dresses she had been holding onto a teak sideboard. "I don't know what to wear. Everything makes me look fat or flat, hippy or like a hippy."

"You--," Cassie could barely get enough air to yell at the girl. "You scared the living daylights out of me because you didn't know what to wear! I thought it was an emergency!"

"Hello?" Mollie rolled her eyes. "Fashion emergency? Ever heard of them?"

"I mean a real emergency." Cassie said, clearly straddling the line between annoyed and amused by Mollie's antics. "You know, like death. A broken limb. Severe head trauma, with lots of gore and blood. Something that requires a visit to the nearest hospital."

"Ew!" Mollie wrinkled her nose in distaste. "Blood? Do you really and truly think that if I, or anyone else, was bleeding severely from the head or anywhere else that I would be able to stop panicking long enough to drive a car two miles?"

"Well, no, but--," She started to protest, but thought better of it. It would be a lot easier to just give up now than to go on debating what constituted an emergency worthy of raising her terror level the way Mollie just had. "What exactly is this for?" Cassie wondered, looking at the wide variety of styles in the pile of clothing.

"A party." Mollie answered, plopping dramatically onto the staircase, putting her head in her hands. "The Whitman's party, to be exact."

"Well, that explains the mass of white fabric." She commented, extracting two pieces from the jumble and tossing them to Mollie. "Wear these. They're fun, flirty, and completely you without being you."

"How'd you know what I was going for?" Mollie looked at Cassie, a look of slight wonderment in her eyes. It was the perfect outfit. How had she missed that combination?

"Babe, you only come to me for fashion advice when you decide to do an overhaul on your style." She smiled, sitting down next to her on the stairs. "Which also means that you've done something very, very naughty."

Blushing slightly, Mollie looked away. "Let's just chalk it up to the fact that I'm an idiot, and leave it at that, okay?"

Cassie put an arm around her, pulling her in for a hug. "Come on, you can tell me all about it while I do you hair."

"Can you do that curly thing you do so well? With the cute little clippies?" Mollie asked, perking up slightly, taking the hand that was offered to her for assistance in getting up.

Laughing, Cassie led her up the sweeping staircase. "I'll even let you borrow something shiny."

--&--

"… And then I saw Graham in the bushes, and I couldn't help myself." Cassie listened intently to Mollie's tale, letting the last strand of golden hair loose. The spiral fell down, joining the thick mass of curls cascading down Mollie's back.

"Mollie…."

"I know, I know!" Mollie moaned dramatically. "I suck."

"You don't suck." Cassie assured her, holding back a smile while she worked a bit of shine product into Mollie's hair. "Well, Tristan might think you do, but you don't suck."

"I'll fix this though, just you wait." Mollie declared. "Then, he won't be mad at me."

"So he's mad?" Cassie asked, twisting a few locks together and fastening them in place with a diamond-studded clip.

"I'm not exactly sure." Mollie bit the inside of her cheek. "Graham went after him. I guess I'll find out tonight at the party. Graham's in charge of getting him there. Well, Tristan's driving, so I guess that he's responsible for getting Graham there, but Graham has to get Tristan to go before that can happen. You know how he gets after stuff like this."

"That I do." Cassie gave her hair one last fluff and adjusted the clip. "Mollie, did you ever think that maybe this afternoon was God's way of telling you to stop meddling in the boys' lives?"

"Please, they're both useless when it comes to this stuff." Mollie scoffed at the suggestion. "Tristan has been waiting around for years for Rory, and so far has not made a move."

"He told her he wanted her." Cassie reminded her as she walked over to a glossy wooden chest and stood a few yards away from the dressing table where Mollie was seated. Mollie's eyes followed the Cassie's fingers as they rummaged through the contents.

"Yeah, but what has he done since then?" Mollie asked, still watching, trying to figure out what Cassie was looking for. "He hasn't done anything, that's what."

"Maybe he's waiting for Rory to come to him, and not for you to force them together."

"Rory's worse than he is. She wants him, you can totally tell, but she keeps going on and on about not wanting to make any more mistakes." Mollie made a face. "She doesn't seem to grasp that if she lets Tristan go for too long, she'll be making the biggest mistake of all. Which is what Rory will be learning tonight, at the party."

"Mollie, I don't think that it's such a good idea to start another plan so soon after the last one went south. When are you going to learn that meddling always turns out bad for you?"

"It's not really meddling, technically." Mollie said, picking at a tiny bit of dirt at the edge of her French manicure. "I'm just going to a party with a friend. And if said friend looks drop dead gorgeous and the boy she's crushing on just happens to be there… well, that's just a lucky coincidence. Purely happenstance. Serendipity, if you will."

"Mollie…." Cassie trailed off, knowing it was useless to try and dissuade the girl. "Just don't cross the line from kind-of-but-not-really meddling into full-blown meddling."

"I promise." Mollie smiled, holding up two fingers. "Scout's honor."

"I know it's been awhile since I was a Girl Scout, but I'm pretty sure that it's three fingers, not two." Cassie laughed, finding what she was looking for in the box at last.

"How would I know?" Mollie said sheepishly, fixing her fingers. "I didn't even make it through the first year of Daisies. I didn't have any fun without the boys, and that blue smock did nothing for my figure."

"You are too much." Cassie laughed heartily. "Turn around." She said, slipping a delicate string of glittering emeralds around Mollie's neck as she did so. "Perfect."

"I love this necklace." Mollie grinned from ear to ear, lightly touching one of the emerald clusters floating across her collarbone. "Can I keep it?"

"No, you may borrow it. And tomorrow, you will bring it back when you turn back into a pumpkin."

"But emeralds are my favorite!" Mollie pouted. "They match my eyes."

"It's not going to work, Babe, so suck in that bottom lip."

"Can I have it when you die, then?"

"Are you planning on bumping me off for it?" Cassie raised an eyebrow, amused. "It's a family heirloom. It's been passed down for generations."

"So? I highly doubt that Graham would miss it. Sapphires are more his speed. They bring out the brilliance in those baby blues of his. Green would do nothing for him."

"Yes, I'm sure that you're right. But what if I were to have a daughter? The emeralds have to travel with the bloodline. They'd go to her."

"Please, you can't have any more kids." Mollie scoffed, gazing at her reflection in the mirror.

"Why not?" Cassie asked, hands on her hips. "I'm still young. And on more than one occasion, I have heard myself be referred to as a hot mom."

"It's got nothing to do with your age or hotness." Mollie answered, turning to look at her. "You don't have any time or energy for another kid. After all, the three of us are going to be at Yale next year, and you know how much of a handful we are, especially when in close proximity to one another."

"The three of you?"

"Graham didn't tell you? Tristan's transferring."

"Well, yes but--,"

"Of course, Tristan's being a bit pessimistic about the whole thing, but I know that once he and Rory get together, he'll be much happier about it. It'll all be perfect, just perfect."

"Mollie--,"

"Oh! Look at the time." Mollie glanced down at her watch, realizing she had spent more time at Orchard Hill than she anticipated. "I still have to get Rory ready. And convince her to go." Mollie turned back, giving herself a quick once over before walking toward the door.

"Mollie!" Cassie called, hurrying after her. Mollie paused at the top of the stairs, looking at her expectantly. This was her chance. She could tell her, get it over with. But the words were caught in her throat, unmoving. "Have fun tonight." Cassie told her, chickening out.

"Of course. When do I not have fun?" Mollie beamed. "I'll tell you all about it when I come over tomorrow. Bye!"

Cassie cursed under her breath. Once more, she had failed to tell Mollie. Why did she have to be the one, anyway? Why did she have to be the secret keeper for everyone? One of these days, she was going to have to do it, no matter how much she didn't want to.

And her time was running out.

--&--

"Get up!" Mollie said cheerfully when she burst into Rory's room. "We have a lot to do, and very, very little time to do it in."

Rory sat up from the spot she had been lying in all afternoon, watching Mollie disappear into her closet before getting up to follow. "Put this on." Mollie thrust a crisp white linen dress into Rory's hands before looking down to inspect the neat rows of shoes lined up on the floor. "These don't work!" She said, brushing past Rory, who was still a little behind on what was happening.

Quickly getting her bearings back, Rory followed Mollie back out Rory's door and in through her own down the hall. Rory hurried over to the closet, where a steady stream of shoes seemed to be flying out on their own volition.

"What's going on?" Rory asked, ducking to avoid the lime-green espadrille that came straight for her head.

"Why aren't you dressed yet?" Mollie asked, tossing aside a pair of lilac pumps. "I told you, we don't have a lot of time." She picked up a tangerine platform, inspecting it for a few seconds before discarding that too.

"What are you looking for?" Rory asked, staring at the massive collection that Mollie was searching through.

"Aha!" Mollie cried out happily, holding a pair of high-heeled silver sandals in one hand and two beaded, white flip-flops in the other.

"Here." Mollie handed the flip-flops to Rory, who still had the linen dress dangling from her fingers by the halter. "What are you waiting for? Get dressed!"

"I'm waiting for the explanation." Rory crossed her arms over her chest. "What is going on?"

"Tad and Tibby Whitman are having a party. We're going. Enough details for you?" Mollie answered, slipping her feet into the metallic sandals.

"Thanks for asking if I even wanted to go." Rory scowled. "I'm not in a party mood."

"That's your choice, of course. I won't force you to go with me." Mollie shrugged. "But just so you know, it's Gran's bridge night. In about half an hour, this whole place will be crawling with all of her friends. I'll be leaving in twenty minutes if you change your mind." She turned away, adjusting the hem of her strapless top while sneaking a glance at Rory, as she deliberated in the mirror. "You never know, maybe they'll let you join the D.A.R."

That last comment seemed to help Rory to see the light. "I'll be ready in ten!" Rory announced, hurrying out the door and down the hall to get dressed.

Mollie was so happy she nearly cackled with glee. Her plan was working. Rory and Tristan would be together soon, Mollie could feel it in her bones.

All she had to do tonight was get them in the same room. Surely they could take it from there. And then she would work on getting her own love life back on track. Everything was falling into place for Rory and Tristan. It would do the same for Mollie.

Right?

--&--

As soon as her cell phone started to ring, she knew.

Something had gone wrong.

All of her carefully calculated plans were evaporating with each obnoxious beep of the phone, while she stood in the middle of the cobblestone driveway of Maison de la Glace, glaring at an unfortunate shrub. If looks could kill, the glossy green leaves would have shriveled up, wilting into a pile on the blades of grass. Mollie sent Rory ahead, promising to rejoin her in a few minutes. She couldn't let her hear this call and know that it was all a setup.

"We have a problem." Graham greeted her when she finally answered the phone.

"What did you do, Graham?" Mollie snipped, panic setting in.

"I lost him."

"You what?" Mollie screeched, drawing the attention of a few nearby partygoers chatting on the front lawn. "You had one job. One job." Did she have to do everything by herself? Because there were only so many hours in each day, she couldn't possibly do every single thing in every single one of her plans. "You were supposed to get him here and keep tabs on him until I got here with Rory. That's it. I didn't think it was going to be that hard."

"I think he guessed what your plan was. He said that he wasn't going to be a party to anything you'd cooked up and that he was done playing nice and that he didn't want to deal with 'all this crap' anymore."

"This is bad."

"That's not the worst of it."

"How could this possibly get any worse? This screws up everything. Now I'm going to have to reconfigure everything. He's not going to see her when she walks in the door. She's not going to see him from across the room, and neither of them will realize that they are being complete and total morons and finally get together. Now I'm going to have to come up with a new plan, and these things don't just fall into my head. They take time and careful plotting."

"Georgia walked in about ten minutes ago."

Mollie gasped. "No!"

"Yes."

"I'm going to kill her." Mollie growled, gripping her cell phone tighter. "What is she doing in Newport? She's supposed to be in Cannes for the summer."

"I don't know." Graham sighed. Mollie could practically see him scrubbing his face with his hand, like he always did when he was frustrated. "All I know is that she's here, and she knows Tristan is, too."

"I'll be in there in two seconds; we have to do some serious damage control."

"Bye."

Mollie stamped her foot against the hard stones beneath her toes and snapped her phone shut. She had to find a way to fix this and fast.

--&--

Swirling masses of white surrounded her as she walked in the front door. The Whitman's Annual White party was in full swing, and there were already at least a hundred people there. Suddenly, she was glad that she had finally acquiesced to Mollie's choice in dresses for this evening. Originally, she had thought that it was a bit odd that Mollie, who seemed to always need to stand out and be the center of everything and everyone's attention, would want to go anywhere in the same color as someone else. But now, standing in the midst of all the others dressed like her, she was glad to have been given a heads up on what was acceptable to wear.

"Rory!" Turning around to see who was calling her name, Rory gasped when she saw that it was none other than Louise Grant weaving through the crowd toward her.

"Louise!" She called back, giving the blonde a hug once she was in front of her. "What are you doing here?"

"This is the place to be. Where else would I be? The better question is what are you doing here?" Louise raised an eyebrow. "I thought you hated these kinds of parties. You only ever came to one that I know of."

"I'm visiting Newport with my grandmother this summer." Rory explained, looking around for moment, trying to spot the raven-haired girl who was never far when Louise was around. "Where's Madeline?"

"Newport."

"I figured that much, but is she here at the party?"

"Rory, she's in Newport."

"I know. So are we!"

"No, she's in Newport, California." Louise clarified. "You know, the land of eternal melodrama and Ryan Atwood?"

"Why?" Rory asked, very confused. She had always known Madeline and Louise as a single entity. Wherever one was, the other was sure to be. To see Louise without her sidekick was disconcerting.

"Last week I said, 'let's go to Newport for the summer.' She had to go to see her mom in Tokyo, so she was going to go there and catch a flight back after while I visited my dad, who's still under house arrest. But for some reason, she thought I meant Newport, California, instead of Newport, Rhode Island. Like I would ever suggest going anywhere near that hole. Much too commercial. Besides, everyone who's anyone in New England comes to Newport. This Newport, not the other one. So Madeline is hopping on the next plane and will be here by noon tomorrow."

"Wow." Rory said, trying not to laugh. It was amusing, but she could see that Louise was looking a little lost, and her laughter would probably not help her withstand the next eighteen hours without her other half.

"So what are you doing here?" Louise asked, raising an eyebrow once more.

"I told you, I'm visiting with my grandmother."

"I meant what are you doing here at this party?" Louise explained more fully. "You aren't exactly the type. You left spring break early, after all."

"Coming here wasn't exactly my idea. I kind of got shanghaied into it." Rory explained. "I didn't really want to spend any more time than I had to with my grandmother and her friends."

"So who'd you come with?" Louise asked. A loud squeal near the bar caught both of their attention. Both girls' gazes went across the room, where they saw a blonde launch herself on something tall, dark, and handsome. "Oh, I am so glad I got here early. Things are about to get very, very interesting."

--&--

"My entire goal in life is to outlive my brother, inherit the family fortune, put all my sisters out on the street and live as frivolously as possible, have numerous wives, thousands of illegitimate children, die completely alone, and leave every cent to a parrot named Polly." Robert recited as he led Mollie from the dance floor to the bar. They had met at the door, both arriving at the same time, and were eager to catch up.

"I love it." Mollie beamed, taking a seat at the bar. After the three songs she'd danced to with Robert, she was in need of some refreshment. "And I agree with your decision to switch from a hamster named Herbert to a parrot named Polly."

"It adds an air of eccentricity that Herbert just couldn't provide, don't you think?" Robert turned toward the bartender. "Scotch on the rocks."

Mollie put in her order of something fruity and pink with at least one umbrella before responding. "You are definitely right about the eccentricity that parrots provide. They're so exotic and unusual, especially as a pet. Everyone has a hamster, but who has a parrot?"

"Plus it's much more practical." Robert took a sip of the scotch placed before him. "I need something with the potential to outlive me. Hamsters have a life expectancy of what? Nine Months? It'll take longer than that for me to find someone with syphilis, much less become infected and go crazy and blind from it."

Mollie laughed, scanning the room. Rory was over by the stairs, chatting away with that relentless social climber Louise Grant. Graham was still searching for Tristan, who was still missing in action, as was Georgia, which was very, very bad. All Georgia ever seemed to want to do was screw Tristan over, and Tristan only had enough fun for that to be worth it less than half the time. Mollie still couldn't believe that she'd ever called that lying, cheating, good-for-nothing, evil temptress a friend. The very thought sent a shiver down her spine. Mollie liked to consider herself a good judge of character, and how that snake in the grass got past her 'Psycho Hose Beast' radar, she still didn't know.

"Have I mentioned that you look breathtakingly beautiful tonight?" Robert's voice broke through her thoughts, pulling Mollie back into their conversation.

"Why no, Robert, you have yet to comment on my breathtaking beauty, or my general fabulousness, as a matter of fact." Mollie flipped a few curls over her shoulder, smiling wide.

"Does that count, or are you expecting me to say it again?" Robert asked her. Mollie raised an eyebrow in answer, and he repeated the line. "Mollie, you look breathtakingly beautiful tonight, and in general, you are always fabulous as well."

"Wow, Robert." Mollie fluttered her eyelashes in an exaggerated manner. "Keep that up, and you may actually make me blush."

"One day, Dear." He patted her hand for a moment. "One more thing to add to my list of life goals. I think I'll put it above reading _The Iliad_, and below losing an extremity to frostbite."

"I'm flattered, Robert." Mollie twirled a strand of her hair around her fingers, leaning in a little bit. "That's a prime slot in your to-do list."

"There you go, Miss." The bartender said, depositing a tall glass, full of a frothy, frosted concoction, complete with two tiny purple umbrellas, down in front of her, along with a blue raspberry Jell-O shot.

"Excuse me!" Mollie called him back, waving the tiny glass in the air. "I didn't order this."

"A gentleman on the other end of the bar asked me to bring it to you." The young man told her.

"Well, take it back."

"But Miss…." The bartender looked around, unsure of what to do.

"Mollie, just keep it. What's the harm?" Robert asked, not enjoying the disruption of their conversation.

"There is no harm in it. But I don't want it, and I didn't order it, and I shouldn't feel compelled to keep something that I don't want or need or--,"

"Love, would you just take the bloody shot?" Mollie's mouth dropped open at the sound of his voice behind her. "It's enough to make a man feel unappreciated and unloved, the way you carried on about my very special gift."

"Finn!" In an instant, Mollie had left her seat, catapulting herself at him in a flash of white, leaving Robert forgotten, next to her drink. He staggered back a little, not expecting Mollie to launch herself into his arms with such intensity. "What are you doing here? I thought you were still stuck in Indonesia!"

"Mummy had Uncle Henchy call off the Indonesian Coast Guard and ordered me to come straight home." Finn told her, twirling her around a few times. "So naturally, I spent a few weeks in Canberra, then flew to Belize for a few days, and then somehow ended up in Miami for a month. I swear, if I were gone another twenty-four hours, I'd have been disinherited for sure."

"She's always threatening you with that, and she's never gone through with it." Mollie positively glowed at the sight of him. "You have to promise never to go away for this long again without taking me with you. Everything in Hartford is frightfully dull without you."

"Will my word suffice, or am I going to have to pinky promise?" Finn asked with a devilish grin. "I do warn you, that the latter will force me to put you down. I'm not nearly strong enough to hold you with only one arm."

"HEY!"

"I mean, the sheer weight of your personality alone would cripple a lesser man than I." He joked, ducking his head to avoid her swatting hand.

"You are mean." Mollie pouted, quelling the giddy little butterflies dancing around in her stomach. Finn was without a doubt her favorite person in Hartford, and this past year spent without him to make the rounds with at all of the boring parties and charity events had been nearly unbearable. "And to think that I put in at least twenty minutes every day missing you."

"I'm so sorry that you think that." Finn sighed, looking away. "Then I suppose that I'll have to give your very fabulous present to someone else that doesn't think I'm quite so mean." His face lit up, clearly ready to mock her. "I know! Maybe I should mosey on over there, to give it to Louise! I'm sure she'd appreciate it."

"Don't you dare!" Mollie narrowed eyes flashed, green as the emeralds glittering around her neck. "Where is it?" She asked, trying to search his pockets while still pressed against him. "What is it? Do you have it here? Is it smaller than a breadbox? Bigger than a steamer trunk? Did you find it somewhere fabulous? Does it--,"

"Darling, you're going to have to remember that the game only allows twenty questions. Perhaps you should slow down and give me an opportunity to answer them before beating me down with useless ones." He was surprised when she got quiet and waited for him to answer her.

"Well?"

"Well, I can't tell you what it is, Love. It's a surprise." Again he ducked, her hand coming at him once more. "And it's not here, and yes, it's smaller than a breadbox, so obviously, it's also smaller than a steamer trunk, and lastly, would I ever give you a gift that wasn't procured in some exotic, fabulous locale?"

He was right, and Mollie knew it. Whether it was chocolates from Belgium, or her surfboard from Fiji, or even her adorable cuckoo clock from Switzerland; he had never done anything but overwhelm her with his gifts from his travels abroad.

"So, where is it then?" Mollie asked him again. "And why didn't you bring it with you?"

"How was I to know you'd be here?"

"And where else would I be on the night of the Whitman's Annual White Party?"

"Far away from Georgia?"

"Hardly." Mollie scoffed, narrowing her eyes at the mere mention of her one-time friend. "I am not the one who's supposed to be skulking off across the Atlantic. I will not hide in my house like a criminal while she takes over my town."

"Good to know." Finn chuckled, amused. The music changed, and he smiled at her.

_You can dance…_

"How about a dance, Darling?" He asked, finally setting her down.

… _you the eye, let him hold you tight…_

Mollie touched her chin, contemplating. "They're playing our song." He coaxed, twirling her body into his.

"You always say that."

"I know." He spun her out again, before pulling her close, winding their way onto the dance floor. "But this time, Love, I really, really mean it."

_So Darling save the last dance for me…_

--&--

Evil ex-girlfriends. Missing persons. Friendships torn apart for the love of someone unworthy of the affection. Families turned upside down from infidelity. Fathers forgotten for doing the secretary. Mothers forced to marry men with enough money to keep their families from public humiliation.

There was far, far too much drama in her new circle of friends.

Louise had filled her in on the goings on of the people she was now surrounded with. Rory would have never guessed that she would have found so many Shakespearian themes within such a small group of people. But according to Louise, these things seemed to flock to them like moths to a flame.

Tristan's life was so complicated. Maybe even too complicated. He had too many problems to deal with, too many issues to struggle with, and if she added herself into the mix, with her own baggage, she wasn't sure that they'd both come out alive.

And then there was the Evil Ex.

Georgia, according to Louise, was probably the great love of Tristan's young life. They'd dated on and off for two years, and every time they'd parted, it was on a bigger and more grandiose scale, until finally, after their last split, Tristan disappeared without a trace for two months, without contact to anyone. When he resurfaced, Tristan had refused to talk about it, or tell anyone where he'd been. Rumors ran rampant, and the most popular was that he'd spent his time away in a monastery in Eastern Europe making cheese and working with the monks under a cloak of silence.

Weaving her way through the people scattered on the sweeping staircase, Rory found herself in a place of serenity and peace.

The library.

Running her fingers across the old volumes calmed her nerves and brought her back to her center. This was where she belonged, amidst her books, not down stairs, fighting her way through throngs of people she didn't know and didn't care to know. Why had she agreed to come? Even the D.A.R. bridge game couldn't be as bad as this, shut up in a stranger's house, all alone, trying to block out the sounds of laughter and the blare of the bass coming from outside the walls of literature.

"Do you always hide yourself away at parties, Gilmore?" Rory whirled around, startled by the voice behind her. "I mean, the action is down there, with the rest of the crowd." Tristan kept on, leaning against the doorway. "Unless, of course, you were looking for a different kind of action, in which case, I'd be more than happy to help you out."

Rory rolled her eyes. It always had come back to that with Tristan. "Seems like you have a one-track mind, Dugrey." She wanted to turn her back on him, to go back to the books that sat on the shelves behind her, but her feet wouldn't move and her eyes wouldn't break the connection she had with Tristan. "Do you ever think of anything else?"

"Yeah, I do." He finally broke away from the door, walking inside the room to where she was still standing. Rory watched him come toward her, still unable to move, still unable to look away. "I think about a lot of things."

Tristan's eyes were focused on her lips, and she had trouble catching her breath. They were standing very close, but they weren't touching each other. "At night when I'm in bed, and I'm trying to fall asleep, I think about kissing you. I think about how you taste and the way that you feel with your lips pressed against mine, and I can't stop myself even when it's killing me to stay away from you," he whispered into her ear.

She closed her eyes and breathed in his musky scent, trying to stay calm. He was _too _close, and it was wreaking havoc with her senses. Rory could feel herself losing the hold she had on her self-control. She knew if she asked him to move away he would, but Rory didn't want that either.

"Relax Rory, I'm not going to do anything until you ask me to. I just want you to know I think about you all the time." His tongue flicked out of his mouth, the tip running over the outer shell of her ear, and Rory could feel herself getting turned on.

Rory's eyes opened wide when she felt his index finger caress her cheek softly. "Here. Here. And here." Tristan swept his finger across her cheek and over to her lips, and then trailed it down to the sensitive corner of her neck.

Suddenly, Rory wished she hadn't followed Mollie's fashion advice. The low cut back of her dress made it impossible to wear a bra, and with only the gauzy white material to cover her, she didn't think she could hide her body's reaction to his voice whispering in her ear.

"And when I think about kissing you, my mind starts to wander." he murmured seductively. "I think of all the other things we'll do." Rory gulped hard when Tristan gave her a suggestive smile. "I wonder what you'll feel like when I'm moving inside you. How tight and wet you'll be for me. It drives me up the wall." He continued.

Tristan moved closer, his shirt brushing against her breasts. Her nipples hardened at the slight contact, and she closed her eyes again, letting his words soak into her soul.

"I think about your legs wrapped around me and you screaming my name when I make you come harder than you ever have before. I think about how hot you are and how hard you make me when I think of you." Tristan slid his fingers over her collarbone to the curve of her neck, sending her senses soaring.

"Tristan…"Rory moaned and bit her lower lip hard, fighting to keep her composure. But Tristan was a master of seduction and knew just how to handle her every step of the way. She was at her breaking point, he could feel it.

"Yeah, like that only a little bit louder." He teased, gently biting her earlobe, tugging it between his teeth. Maybe he wasn't still in love with his ex, like Louise had led her to believe only an hour before. Perhaps Rory was an old-fashioned girl, but the intimacy of what he was doing made her think that Georgia was the furthest thing from Tristan's mind.

"I think about what it would be like to go down on you," he whispered next, tilting his head back to watch her reaction. Rory froze when he said this, but Tristan took it as a good sign when she didn't protest his hands sliding down her arms and settling on her hips. "I think about that all the time. How you'll call my name when I make you come over and over again, and I can't get these thoughts out of my head and I can't sleep because every time I close my eyes, all I can see is you," he muttered into her ear, his long fingers stroking small circles into her sides.

"I'm sorry," Rory apologized. It was ridiculous, she knew, to apologize for something that she didn't have control over, but she didn't have anything else to say.

Tristan laughed a deep, throaty laugh. "Don't be. I know I'm not. You're all I think about, and I wouldn't change that for anything in the world."

He took a step closer, and Rory thought he would finally kiss her. Tristan's lips were less than an inch away from her own when he whispered, "Do you know what I fantasize about the most, Rory?" Tristan didn't wait for her to answer as he continued. "The day you'll finally let me in and admit you want all of these things just as much as I do."

Rory knew she was going to have to make the first move. He was right, she did want all of those things. She wanted him just as much as he did her. All he was asking her to do was bridge the inch-wide gap and press her lips to his. Such a tiny chasm had never seemed to be so expansive before this moment.

"It's okay," he assured her in the same tone he had been using the entire time he was leading her through his seduction. "I can wait." He brushed his lips against her temple, and flashed her a smirk. "Just don't make me wait too long. I have a reputation to uphold here."

And with that, he was gone. Tristan turned and walked away from her as quickly as he had joined her only moments prior. But suddenly, the quiet that had seemed so safe before his arrival wasn't as comforting as it had been. She knew what she had to do.

"Wait!" Rory called after him, rushing toward the door, thoughts of uncertainty and insurmountable obstacles long forgotten. The beaded shoes on her feet flipped and flopped, making smacking sounds against the wood floor. She couldn't let him walk away again, not this time. Rory twisted the knob and hurried into the hallway.

Standing there, in front of her, was a very smug-looking Tristan Dugrey, leaning against the wall as if he'd been waiting for hours. "What took you so long?" He asked, his lips curving irritatingly.

Rory was in front of him in three quick strides. There was only one thing in the world that she could think of that would be effective in removing that annoying smirk from his face.

She kissed him.

* * *

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